And So To Live: Reloaded
by Homeric-Simile
Summary: An exploration of John Silver's childhood, and how he might have become a pirate. Originally uploaded under the title of E Così per Vivere. Complete!
1. Prologue

**Introduction: **This is the previously removed fanfiction of mine, _E Così per Vivere_, the story where I explored what might have been John Silver's childhood, and the story in which I was planning to document what might have been his life right up to the voyage to Treasure Planet. Unfortunately, as such is the bane of a lot of fanfiction writers, too much just got in the way of getting the entire story finished, so I removed it, not wanting to keep an unfinished story up on and never completing it. Some time after its removal, though, a couple of readers asked where it went, and most recently S2moviefreak123 emailed me and convinced me to re-upload what I'd written as the _completed_ story of how Silver became a pirate, and not as his uncompleted biography. So here it is, re-uploaded as the story of Silver's childhood and how he became a pirate; Silver's adult life will have to be left up to your imaginations. ;) Enjoy all, old readers and new readers alike!

**Author's Note** Forgive how arcane this story sounds; I purposely wrote this to emulate the styles of old novels, so it would sound authentic and… really old.

**Disclaimer:** John Silver is copyright the Disney Corporation; I only borrowed him for fanfiction purposes. All other characters in this story (with the exception of Captain Flint's mention and the use of published TP species), however, are belong to me.

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_**Prologue**_: John Silver; particulars about his birth and the circumstances attending the event.

Bent underneath the shadows of the prominent buildings in the town of which was the birthplace of the child, there has been, and perhaps always will be, the blemish on Civilization's drawn face: Homes of poverty; and in one of these impoverished houses he was born—the child of the poor family whose name is ushered to the title of this chapter.

The child, after his birth, had much difficulty taking it upon himself to breathe; and was coaxed, although not gently, by the majority of whom were present by being swatted on the back, rear-end, and chest several times before he emerged from a gasping and sputtering choke into a cough and loud wail. The feat itself was not so much of a relief as a general group achievement for the number of these adults who were present in the exiguous home, and which thusly brought forth congratulations for one another as the newborn put his lungs to full use.

He was a majestic infant, if any infant was majestic; born with beautiful blue eyes, a wide mouth, and ten fingers and toes that looked as if carved from marble. Three men, the doctor and two neighbors of no relation, and one woman—the latter three of them all paupers—stood about the shrieking child, patting him, thumping him, and further inspecting him for any interior deformities. None were discovered, and this found more congratulations for the people in the group. The child was then wrapped in a sheet that was too big, and that drug along on the bare floors of his new home.

The Ursid woman who had given birth to the child lay quiet and peaceful, but seemingly as her new infant gained its own breath, she steadily began to lose hers. Her husband clung to the bedside, for it was all he could do for his wife now and he knew it, and watched as she slowly began to slip farther and farther away from him. Her eyes stared at the ceiling; crystalline, calm, and even though so close to death, smiling and glimmering in the dim light as she listened silently to her son screech and sob.

"Let me see him," she requested in a whisper to her husband, lifting her hand to brush his face with her already cold fingers. The child was brought to his father, but was not taken into his father's arms, for as the child approached the bed in the arms of the doctor who carried him, the woman's frail hand quavered, and after a moment dropped lightly against her side, where it remained, inert.

The husband's eyes remained steady. After a moment, and as the realization crept into him, he rose, slowly, and slid his hand into hers to clutch it firmly, and watched her as though his touch would bring color back to her face. He gazed at her for some time, blankly, surrounded by the sudden boom of silence rendered from his wife's death. As his eyes moved over her slender body, water began to form beneath his blue eyes. After a long time, he bent and kissed her softly on the hand he held, and then he said softly, his voice as fragile as glass, "Let… let _me_ see him."

His child was brought forward once again; the silence pulsing underneath the wood ceiling, and the father gathered his son into his arms and looked down at the squalling infant he now cradled. His child coughed through its sobs, whimpered, and then opened its eyes to look expressionlessly up at its father's face. The Ursid, smiling faintly, now kissed his son delicately on the forehead, and then looked down at him in his arms. "You know," he said to his son, his voice breaking quietly, "She was going to name you John. I have no better name for you."

The two male neighbors began to clean up after the birth, and collect the tools and medicines the doctor and midwife had supplied as a way of escaping the tremendous loss of life in the room. The ample and florid face of the woman neighbor, who was also the midwife, leaned over the foot of the bed to regard the mother's body. The small, old bed creaked against her weight. "It's a shame, bless 'er dear heart," she murmured lethargically to herself as she began to gather her own supplies. "She were lovely, poor thing. And so young! She could've bore several more children, here, if she'd have stayed with us, bless 'er dear, dear heart. But she were fair thin and weak, n' not much strong enough for child-bearing, poor thing."

The doctor, a pale medical gentleman with a cough and a pock-marked face, regarded the body stoically as he filled his pipe, and then lifted his eyes to the man and his son in his arms, who was whimpering again.

Sidling the new father, keeping watch of the tobacco in his pipe thoughtfully, the doctor spoke to him in his low, serious voice. "I'll have someone come out to bury her for you, Jonas."

The Ursid looked at the doctor, his eyes blurred by his tears. "I have no money to pay someone for that kind of service…"

The doctor, still fixated on the tobacco in his pipe, interrupted Jonas with a short hush. "Don't worry about that… don't worry about that. I'll have someone come out to bury her for you."

"…Thank you."

The doctor stood quietly beside Jonas as both men listened to the newborn coo and begin to cry again between his father's arm and chest. Presently, the doctor spoke again. "Jonas," he murmured, "I'm sorry I could do nothing for her, and I understand that putting her to rest will be difficult, but… remember this night could have been a double loss."

Jonas again looked up at the doctor, but then let his head fall to his wife on the bed. "I know. She would have been happy that John survived, and I should be, too… and I am… I just wish there… could have been something to…" Jonas's words melted in his mouth as his grief finally overcame him. The doctor looked away, exhaled a small puff of smoke from the pipe into the air, and then turned away from him, resting a consoling hand on Jonas's shoulder. "Mourn her, Silver," he said faintly, "but do not let yourself be tortured. For the good of your son; it is not what she would have wanted."

"Yes—no, no; you're right," Jonas coughed, his voice steadier than what would have been expected of him. "I'm sorry."

The doctor watched him for a while longer, allowing Jonas to recollect himself, and then departed for the door with one tap of the hand on his shoulder as a last act of solace. When the doctor met the midwife at the door, he turned back around toward Jonas, blew another black puff of smoke into the air, and said, "If anything should come up, be aware I should make myself available any way I can."

Jonas sighed shakily, calming himself. "Again, thank you."

"God be with you," the doctor stated solemnly, and then dispersed with the other birth attendants into the cold night.


	2. Chapter 1

_**Chapter 1**_: John Silver; the beginnings of his life and his first discoveries of Treasure Planet

John Silver was delivered steadfastly into life by his father, who, as greatly bereaved he had become by his wife's death, maintained, with little exertion, a constant affection for his infant son, and so John, for the beginning of his life, knew nothing of trouble or sorrow. Although John, through his puerile and inexperienced mind, like all other children his age, knew nothing of how life for him and his lonely father could have been, and certainly did not know of the impecunious life his father could only offer him, for all he knew was the derelict neighborhood was his home, and the home of his father, and, at the early stages in his life, his childish love of home helped him cherish it.

John unfortunately knew hunger very well indeed; this monstrous ache tortured his little insides far more than they were satisfied, and very often he would act with strength to effectuate its absence, but with the familiarity of the ache came the endurance against it, which served him well in his days of blissful infancy and youth. Thusly, John's seven and eighth birthdays both found him a small, rather diminutive child, and decidedly meager in the proportions of the circumference. He was still, however, stoutly-built, as all Ursurid infants are, and was implanted with a courageous and inexorable persistence, which may have been the singular continuation of his years.

To Jonas, there could have never been a more beautiful child born to him. By every shape, form, and pose John took, or in anything he attempted to articulate, Jonas found every day something flowing in his son's blood that was his mother's. John had an innate eloquence in movement and a grace in personality which matched none other but hers. Jonas could recognize that it was her smile that now curled on John's young face, and her brunet strands now sprang forth and glistened in the sun on John's head. The only thing that was his mark in the new child was the color of his eyes; an intense, but merciful and kind blue.

With such strange and unbelievable rapidity, how soon this small infant became capable of social correspondence! And what melodious a laugh the child could later produce, and what a charming voice did the child pour out whenever speaking! Jonas could hear his wife's precious and lyrical sound within his son's young voice and the harmonious music that threaded through his tongue. It was a joy to hear John's laugh rise from the streets among the throng of neighboring children, playing games and running through the stone streets that tied the homes of poverty together, and it was a joy to watch his creative magic creep into a thousand objects. The child had an innate sorcery to transform any materials into the instruments he needed to realize the day's drama—sticks, rocks, stones—and when no suitable possession could be sought, he could laughingly pull invisible resources from thin air, and how his playmates commended John for this proficiency.

John incessantly was at play, disregarding whether or not play was the proper thing to do in every situation. Jonas, therefore, giving incline to his child's character, tried several ways to bring John's imagination into his education at home. Writing, at first, was simply holding the pencil between thumb and index finger and swirling the ink around in whichever shapes John pleased, and then slowly Jonas taught him to bring the random swirls to form the letter "A", and thusly "B", and so forth. In this, John learned basic grammar and arithmetic skills, but advanced heavily and with great delight in reading books for young children, and became enthralled by the mysteries of fiction and legend. Many times Jonas was aggrieved to be reminded that he had no money with which to spend on new books for his son to read, since he was severely insolvent; but of the books he could not afford, he readily conjured up his own creative wits and brought John his stories orally.

These stories were mainly shared at Jonas's workplace, where John often was forced to accompany him. Jonas was a clerk in the navy pay office, where his wages suffered tremendously and were made ephemeral faster than Jonas could work for them. Very frequently, Jonas would not even hold his earnings in his hand, for they were swiftly sniffed out and seized by his creditors.

Despite these mirthless financial circumstances, however, Jonas found comfort in his little son's journeys with him to and from the office. John's eyes swept with wonder and bewilderment over the very large world the spaceport was as opposed to the quiet atmospheres of his simple home, and asked questions concerning everything he saw; ships, objects, buildings, animals, and space-faring creatures; some walking on two legs like himself and his father, others walking on four, now six, now even eight, and some that now walked not on legs but tentacles, or paws, and now some who even flew!

The stories told inside the little one-room pay office, however, continually impelled Jonas with a reinvigoration of his enchanting adoration for his little son. He found it strangely difficult to amalgamate subjects into a story at first, but, in a way to humor the child, he mastered the art of spinning his ideas and own wonders into magical spells and releasing them into John's ears; full of knights on horses, dragons, fairies, witches, enemies, royalty, rescues, suspense, which were all later reincorporated into John's fanciful, mystic creativity in his own play. John would later delve into the glowing worlds his father told him of on the streets of his indigent home.

Although, when John became older, about eight or nine, and at an age where he was not forced to go to his father's work anymore but wished to go because many of the children he had played with were now scrounging for employment, there was the quiet request of a story involving no dragons or fairies, but of the men who walked about the streets of their docks.

Jonas sat back against the desk, intrigued, at this entreaty. "What makes you want to hear such a story, John?"

"Because," John responded, twisting a piece of twine he had obtained on the streets near one of the ships in his fingers, "I like that they're _real_. I like to pretend that I might talk to them sometime... do you know any real stories about spacers and the Etherium?"

Jonas had only heard but one in the corresponding genre, which was a legend of pirates and their planet of treasure that was first told roughly one hundred years ago. Captain Nathaniel Flint and his syndicate of malevolent buccaneers, Jonas knew confidently, had indeed substantially existed as the historical figurehead of the Etherium's despoilers, pilfering across the seven galaxies; their story being one of fine captivation, for Flint was officially recorded several times in history as being seen in one galaxy and then in another in less than an hour's time, and how he was able to accomplish this still remained a mystery to even the most educated historian. What made the ancient tale a legend was the rumor that Flint, after collecting spoils from over a thousand worlds, hid the riches on an obscure celestial body known as Treasure Planet, where he brooded over it all until his death, after murdering his crew to keep them from stealing it from him. Jonas heard of some who pursued the lost treasure from the legend, but many times failed or discarded their search. Some ten years after the skies began to realize Flint's reign of terror had fallen away, superstitious people would begin to insinuate one of the crew survived and possessed a map to the planet, but no one knew who he was, and no one stepped forward with the identity, and so it was lost in among the strings of the legend, only to grow fainter as the story was passed down.

Jonas, complying, sat down on his stool and repeated what he had learned of the legend to John.

"What happened to the planet?" John asked, after a moment's thought.

Jonas chuckled to himself. "I don't know... perhaps it still exists somewhere out there? All full of treasure and riches..."

"And Captain Flint?"

"And," Jonas allowed, wrinkling his nose for the entertainment of his son, "perhaps Captain Flint's _bones_."

John smiled. "Do _we_ have that much money?"

"_Oh_, no; we have very little money."

To this, John proceeded in vain to furrow his brow and pucker his lips in order to wrinkle his own nose. Jonas laughed shortly at this, and then put the whole of his palm on top of his son's little head and pressed the little brown nose with his thumb. "What's that face for?"

"Is it funny?"

"Yes."

"Then it was to make you laugh!" John cried with a melody and an exult that sounded so like his mother's that it sent a twinge of sadness inside Jonas's stomach. Jonas smiled at the boy, who freed himself and began to dance like a little sprite around the room with his piece of twine over his head. Jonas leaned back again on his stool, and inquired playfully, "_Who_ are you the child of?"

"I am the son of my father, Jonas Silver!" His son sang excitedly as he danced, recognizing this game frequently shared between him and his father. "I am _John_ Silver!"

"How could you be the son of him? You look nothing like Jonas Silver."

"That is because, my father tells me, I am mostly my mother's child, but I was given as a gift by her to him!"

"And tell me of your mother, John Silver."

John stopped abruptly in his caper, and fell close to his father's knees. He recited this part of their game the most intently, slowly, and the most engrossed. "She had the eyes of the stars, hair the color of the earth, the lips of the rose, and the skin of the moon!"

Jonas took John up in his arms and sat him on his lap, the game ending, as it always did, "And as do you, John Silver?"

John placed his left cheek on his father's shoulder, and recited the last words with his grin, "I have all but her eyes of stars, for I have my father's eyes, whose eyes are but of the blue sky."

Jonas put his hand on the back of John's head, and sat with his son breathing quietly against the rise and fall of his own chest.

Presently, John spoke again. "Father?"

"John?"

"I can hear your heart beating."

A light smile crossed Jonas's face. "It beats for you only."

John giggled and resituated his head a little on Jonas's shoulder. "And for _you_, too."

"And for me, too."

"Father?"

"Yes?"

"Will we _ever_ have as much money as what's on Treasure Planet?"

Jonas's smile faded. He leaned his cheek against his son's, in thought of how he could answer, and finally replied, deciding that he would answer as if the treasure were worth a plausible sum, since his inexperienced youth was decidedly not calculating the same great amount as he himself was, "Nothing is impossible, I suppose... but it would take a large, _large_ amount of work, and a long time, too, especially if we _earned_ it and not stole it, like how Flint stole his. We'd _both_ have to work hard..."

"Does that mean I'd have to get a job, like my friends are now?"

Jonas frowned with a slight dissatisfaction against his son's head. "No," he answered, "No. We're fine the way we are, John. I hope at some point to have enough money to send you to a real school so—"

John's head shot up from his father's shoulder, serious and with his little eyes wide. "If I don't work, like my friends are, or _you_ are, we won't have enough."

Jonas regarded his son's shrewd observation with mild astonishment. Half of Jonas knew with a searing pain that it was true; he barely had enough money to afford to provide his son's house and food to him, much less that of education by public schooling. Jonas, however, even though an old and familiar fright suddenly seized him, had no intention of bringing such an onerous trial as that concerning money upon such a young child, so he forced a smile at the stern little face of his son, cupping his hands around John's cheeks to keep his eyes.

"John," Jonas assured him, "the treasure that's supposed to be on Treasure Planet—"

Jonas was once again interrupted by the protestation of his son. "That _is_ on Treasure Planet."

The father found himself shocked at this. He swallowed, chasing his thoughts, "Now, no one ever said—"

"I asked for a _real_ story, and you told me the one of Treasure Planet. Isn't it a _real_ story, then?"

A faint realization passed over Jonas—what John said was true—which swelled a sense of agitation inside his chest, and then was shrunk enormously down by the following thought that John's mind was young now, and impressionable, but such nonsense as Treasure Planet would be abandoned in due time with maturity and understanding of the world. Jonas nodded at his son's last conclusion, and returned to the previous issue.

"Fine," he said, "but the treasure is _a lot_ of money. Money like that is... well, too much for just two people who get along fine without much money already. Believe me; I won't have to make you work unless we really start to suffer... okay?"

For a moment, Jonas was startled by how deep his son's eyes had become, and how big they now appeared with his face half hidden by his hands, which still cupped his ears to hold his attention. But for now, John's eyes were diverted to the piece of twine in his fingers.

"...Okay."

"Now," Jonas resumed, removing his hands and placing the child back on his feet, "why don't you go down to the pier and play? I have to get back to work."

John was then ushered out without a word spoken, and grimly walked along the streets, working the twine in between his fingers. Soon, though, he began to play again, and, as Jonas glanced up every now and again, he seemed to be enjoying himself as the captain of an invisible galleon and the plunderer of all arbitrary stones on the street worth robbing.


	3. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_: John Silver; a taste of his allies, and the beginning of turning points

The doctor, the man of whom we have only spoken of once in the prologue, and whose name, the reader must remember, is Isaiah Welling, maintained his covenant to John's father, and opened himself to any needs the man and his little son—who, after applying fingers to mouth and timid refusals to speak anything in his presence for four years before, was intensely friendly towards him—might find wanting. He was a pale man with snow-white skin, which emphasized the aquatic green eyes that glowed from within his great, old head, and he was thin from his own ailments he suffered in these later years of his life. Doctor Welling, we will call him, was a man wont of his own chivalry toward others; so humane was this man and so compassionate was his nature that he blessed every man he met and kissed the forehead of every child he passed on the street, and cared for every friend he acquired, which was never less than abundant, with such a zeal that he was the most heavily that slept at night in the old town that ever lived there before him.

Doctor Welling, in all his benevolence, proved of inestimable value to the Silver family after the tragic events that occurred the day John was born, not only as an uplifting monument of moral strength and comfort, but as a financial aid in Jonas's perils.

The old man was not wealthy, despite his exalted stature as town physician, but he lived in moderate comfort as best he could with the money he had. Doctor Welling lived to the north of the little town of poverty, which was a house of old brick and dismal, surrounded by, ironically, little iron bars. The windows all were kept closed and fastened, but were neatly lined from within by white lace on either side that kept the house looking bright. There was a little court-yard in front, also barred around the perimeter, in which a little girl could often be seen playing in. This little girl was Doctor Welling's young, shining granddaughter, Abigail, who lived with him and her parents in the same little house.

Doctor Welling was usually employed mostly by the poor when taken ill—which provided plentiful employers who lived miserably in their miserable homes—and he being a man of such opulent sympathy for his fellows, Doctor Welling was a lenient physician, and, when no money could be paid for his services when he aided some of the poorest of employers, he pushed the matter of the debt aside and never brought it up again; nor would he have if the family struck oil and became rich the following day.

Even so, Doctor Welling found loaning money to his fellows just as easily achievable as erasing their debts to him. The money lent, however, was a scanty sum, and could only support a one-room home with the addition of other financial assistances obtained elsewhere. The old man, however, could only afford to loan scanty sums and still have enough to keep himself afloat, so his money was loaned to only the most in need, and the most graciously unwilling to accept it. Jonas Silver, with his little son, fell comfortably into both these categories.

Therefore, the doctor and Jonas Silver kept up a familiar intercourse with each other, seeded by money, and then sprouting into the mutual adoration of Jonas's departed wife and John's mother, and then blooming into a mutual enchantment with the affable little boy that was now in Jonas's care. Doctor Welling visited the Silver family regularly, sometimes with a small piece of candy for John, other times with a few dollars for Jonas—which was relentlessly declined until finally, by the end of the visit, accepted—and then other times with nothing more but his glowing green eyes and a breath of new conversation on his lips.

One day, while stepping delicately along the stone path, which had become gray with the rain that had washed it just a quarter of an hour ago, Doctor Welling drew himself toward the Silver property on one of his many visits. As he neared the small, wooden dwelling, he noticed soon enough that the little boy, John, now grown to the age of eleven, sat upon the porch, counting three small coins in the palm of his hand, which was cradled close to his face, and he appeared quite proud of this currency.

John, hearing the doctor's steady approach, raised his eyes and smiled at him, his face still very close to the coins in his hands, and they twinkled in the emerging sunlight as John's face lifted slightly toward the advancing Welling.

"Ah," Welling greeted, still making his way toward the boy, "a murky afternoon it certainly is, isn't it, John? But one no better received, I believe, considering how much my daughter-in-law's flowers were in need of such a good drink as this!"

John brought his hand and the coins behind his back and sat up as the doctor finally came to the porch and stood before him. John, as a way of politeness, which he had forever been strictly taught to show, and was fast to learn, rejoined with, "Oh, yes? And tell me: How is she and your son, sir?"

"Nathan and Elizabeth are doing well. Elizabeth is a woman with strength inside her, to say the least, and can best the most unsavory of weather."

"And your granddaughter, sir? Is she doing okay?"

"Ah!" Welling cried again, which was his custom to begin a sentence with an outburst, "My little Abigail! She grows before my very eyes, much like you; although, as you know, she grows two years in your senior; but what about you, John? How are you nowadays?"

Without thinking, John's smile broadened with a kind of intricate and well-kept secret behind it that wanted nothing more than to be shown. The boy shrugged, averting his eyes a while. "I can't say, sir. I'm rather hungry, to be plain. But I couldn't be happier at the moment."

Doctor Welling smiled down at the boy, who still sat on the porch, and at length proceeded to take a seat next to him. "And what makes you so happy, John?"

John's eyes rose to meet the doctor's in eagerness, but he replied readily, "my deepest regrets, sir, but I cannot tell you!"

Doctor Welling drew his face close to the boy's in a playful manner, and whispered confidentially, "Oh? And what secret is this? Why can't you tell a poor old man what you smile about, and make him feel young again! What secret is more important than giving an old man an instance's youth with your gladness?"

John laughed, and replied steadily, "Well, I don't want to give an old man such a gift as that because such an instance could go to his head, and he might run too fast for his age and hurt himself."

This answer rendered the old man a peal of gentle chortling. "You're a smart boy, John Silver, in the way of wits and humor the most! Come, boy, though: speak! I promise your secret is safe in this old man's head. What makes you grin so broadly?" Welling brought his gray hand to John's chin and tapped it with his index finger.

John slid his eyes high to the left. "Sir," he stated lengthily, "it is but your _presence_ that lightens my mood. Nothing more."

"Hist! Hist! Such lies, you silly child!" Welling hissed at him, laughing. "Tell me quickly what it is you hide so well from me, or I shall cease to ask any more times!"

John twisted his little head fully toward the doctor, his eyes big and bright. "You promise my secret is safe, sir?" He asked, grinning.

"Yes, John."

John brought forth his little gross of coins. They twinkled together in the soft sunlight, now coming down in rays through the clouds. The boy's eyes were radiant. "Copperpeices!" he whispered excitedly, "and three of them, too! It was a wonder, sir—my very first wages. I worked a whole hour to earn these at Mrs. Thatcher's, and look how wonderful they are in my hand!"

Doctor Welling, it can be inferred, had seen much more money than what John displayed to him now, and instantly thought little of Harriet Thatcher for putting the boy to an hour's labor and paying him nothing but three coins, but nevertheless, he proved quite excited about John's small amount of earnings to a high magnitude.

"Ah!" Welling cried, "This is a remarkable surprise, John! But, do tell me—why do you keep these coins a secret? I think your father would be most pleased to know you—"

"No, no, sir!" John interrupted, clasping his fingers around the coins and thrusting them back behind him, looking at the doctor with insistent eyes. "My father would not be pleased in the least! He doesn't want me to work. He wants me to stay with my studies, and he keeps promising me that I'll soon attend a school, but, sir, I think it's a false hope."

"How do you mean, my boy?"

"Because it seems as though Father can't even afford _bread_ anymore! Last night, we visited Mrs. Bailiff's shop to buy some, and we left empty-handed because father didn't bring enough money to pay for some." At this, Doctor Welling's brow must have knitted itself with obvious discontent, for John added, in an even softer voice, "but it's all right, sir, for I'm going to make my father and me rich as _kings_!"

Doctor Welling started slightly at this last statement, even more so than when he had heard the preceding information. Welling, in his vast education, had never heard of creatures in any world of the Etherium rise in ranks so exorbitantly as from paupers to kings by the acts of one mere child behind his father's watchful eye. Although, in Welling's vast experience, his hair had turned white with seeing what would be termed as miracles, marvels, and anomalies, and seen life at its most merciful and unexpected. Doctor Welling, however, as he looked at the child, grew increasingly more nettled, for the child had only three coins, which was not even an acceptable quantity for Jonas's tangibly dwindling money for food. Welling, although frowning deeply inwardly, found a smile somewhere to pluck up to his face.

"Then here," he handed John a little piece of candy wrapped in a handkerchief as he rose from his place on the porch, "eat that, your majesty. And... here, I've got something else for you..."

"What is it?" John asked, taking the candy and placing it tactfully in his pocket.

Doctor Welling, in his own pocket, revealed two silver coins. "These; so you can add to your profit."

John gazed down at the two glittering silverpieces in awe. The silver that caught in the light gleamed a slight discoloration on the child's face as he bent to look at them in the doctor's hand. "They're for me? But... sir, they're _silverpieces_! I... can't accept them."

"Yes you can, John—because I'm giving them to you."

John lowered his eyes. Welling's brow knitted further, and asked, slightly obdurately, "Why don't you take them, boy?"

A pause ensued between them, and, as Welling looked on, John tentatively revealed his other hand, and uncurled the little white fingers for Welling to behold two more silverpieces. "Because," John responded, "I already have two of your silverpieces. And if I were as good as Captain Flint, I would have taken the ones in your hand without stopping; but I don't have what Captain Flint had, I suppose. I'm sorry... but I'll _never_ become as rich as him, and make my father happy, if I simply _work_ for the money."

This was the most dauntingly portentous of news and occurrences that Welling had witnessed from the boy in the encompassment of their conversation, and, in a sudden irritation quite contrasting that of his usual nature, withdrew his hand in a snap of his wrist, placing his two silverpieces back in his pocket, and then recaptured his other two silverpieces from the boy's hand.

"Captain Flint! I've never heard of such a nonsensical thing as Captain Flint!" Welling shook the two stolen coins in front of John's little face angrily, and then—for anger was not a customary operation for Welling, after all, and therefore he found little knowledge of how to conduct himself with it now, since he was not familiar with a practiced method—he recollected himself, and allowed another pause, this time much more trying than the first, as he placed these silverpieces back with the others in his pocket.

"I'm very displeased with you, John," Welling continued, finding the boy easy to gaze severely at, for John's eyes were averted again, "I've never seen you act in such an unscrupulous manner as what I've seen you do today. Captain Flint! Where did you get an idea like that?"

"My... father told me the story of Treasure Planet. When I was younger... he said we didn't have that much money—he said we had very little money—and now it seems as though we have even less money than before, and I only thought that if I started getting money that... we'd be happier."

Welling scowled, for he found himself in a moment where he was at a loss for words. John's motive for his crime seemed as innocent enough; however, was it such a crime worthy of vindication as the crime committed when stealing bread for a starving family? Welling sighed, concluding to himself that John's crime was not to be encouraged, but not enough to be punished, and, like a man tip-toeing through a dark room and then finding his match, so did Welling retrieve the words to his lips again.

"John, Captain Flint was _not_ a man to be emulated. It's also unrealistic, since his 'loot of a thousand worlds' and such is just a common myth, and that such an amount of money is unattainable. As for your not having something that man had—you should be proud! You have something we call a conscience, and a heart. It means you're above petty thievery!"

John's eyes had not lifted at this hearty statement, nor had they brightened by any means. Welling, after a moment's consideration, sat down next to him again on the porch, and patted his shoulder to hearten the child.

"Now... let's be friends again. With such an enormous wealth of life experience I have in my old head, I've learned that no one can be defined by one action, can they, John? Yes, that's right; they truly can't."

John's eyes quickly drew up and looked sadly into the doctor's. "I _am_ sorry, sir! Please forgive me, I beg you..." and in another quick movement of the youth, he clasped Welling between his little arms.

Hereupon, such a passionate and penitent outburst from the contrite boy melted Welling's anger like the sun would melt a sliver of ice, which might have already been dematerializing under an overcast sky, and the doctor, his heart swelling with his sympathetic tenderness, returned the embrace and assured that all was forgiven.

"John," Welling asked presently, breaking from their endearment, "Is your father at home? Can I speak with him?"

"Yes! He's inside the house. I don't know what he's doing, but I'm sure he'd like to see you."

"Thank you, my boy. Now," Welling added, looking expectantly at John, "There'll be no more of this 'Captain Flint' business, am I not mistaken?"

"...No sir."

"There's a good boy! I'm going to go speak with your father now."

"Yes, sir."

As Welling proceeded to lift himself from his place next to him on the porch, with a grunt or two as he straightened, and neared the door, John watched with apprehension until the old man had disappeared into the entrance of the house, where he could hear murmurs of him and his father begin to talk. John turned back around as the door swung back into place, and looked out onto the old town that he had lived in for so long, now wet with rainwater, and clouds collecting again over the gray earth. John sat quietly there for a long time, and the new rain slowly and invisibly began to drop down onto the stone streets, and puddles cracked silently as tiny raindrops fell inside them, and rippled out.

John, at length, bent his head and looked down. His hands were brought in front of him, pale and in fists, resting on his thighs, and he uncurled his little fingers before his blue eyes, and beheld with a kind of wonderment and horror at what his palms held. In his left, three little copperpieces glinted in a sandpaper-orange, and in his right, four silverpieces shone in a white glare.

John sprang to his feet, seized blindly with a giddy panic by his perfidy, and burst into a run like a bird across the stones and around to the back of the house, where he collapsed to his knees, thrust the coins aside, and dug wildly at the soft, wet dirt beside the gray house, digging and digging until a small, insufficient hole was gauged, which soon housed the wickedly-obtained silverpieces, and was covered up again. John sat back on his heels, breathing laboriously, his hair streaming with raindrops, and then picked the copperpieces out of the grass, one by one. He then shakily unearthed the terrible silverpieces, now spotted with flecks of brown mud, and dropped the copperpieces in with them, and heard them clink together as he filled the hole up again.

He sat next to his hole for the remainder of the rainstorm, watching the drops of water fall from the sky.


	4. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3:**_ John Silver; What Was Overheard in the Rain

The aforesaid torrents came down silently but in a copious downfall, that could be seen slanting against the gray houses, casting the illusion that the dilapidated dwellings rose up in the clouded gloom, and then fell back again continuously in themselves, like the rise and fall of a fountain, and slid away into their obscurity, to where it seemed that only John could discern the ghosts of their existences through the water.

The only noise heretofore was the desultory percussion of the rain tapping on the roof that hung above the boy in the otherwise quietude. John sat on his hands behind the house, because they were cold. The mud became terrible to sit in, for it burst from the ground in the rain, and grew slippery and increased in suction when stepped in, but he held himself in his place, adhered to the hole he had buried his sins in, convinced he should remain there—for he felt himself undeserving of shelter—until he decided whether he would keep or quit himself of his pillage.

Aside from his self-inflicted punishment, John's stomach churned with a passionate hunger, and presently he remembered the candy given to him by the doctor, which he had invested in his pocket for a later time. John searched for it first in the pocket he remembered relinquishing it to, then in his other when his prize was not found, until finally he noticed the handkerchief the candy had been wrapped in lying in the mud, from which nothing fell when picked up. John, despite his chagrin, conjectured this misfortune of losing the candy as an appropriate repercussion of his misdeeds, and pocketed the handkerchief to return to the doctor.

John then started at a new thought: Could he ever conjure up the courage to look at the doctor again? The doctor had been such a friend to him; surely there had been no ruination of their relationship, even if John was to eternally feel an unexplained guilt whenever he was to be with him again in the future. John, replacing his hands underneath him, huddled against the house, the rain almost growing to be insufferable, and now, discomforted by this new horror of not only losing the doctor's trust, but losing his friendship as well, John's morale sank low inside his empty stomach.

Against the house, however, the little Ursid boy could sense the strong and warm presence of his father within, who inevitably stood aside from their little black pot, cooking what John suspected was food remaining from previous meals, and talking with the doctor, which gave John a surge of warmth and fortification as he firmly maintained himself outside in his miserable locations.

With this surge of transitory alleviation, the rain itself seemed as though to commiserate with the boy, for, with a moment's permission, the rain abstained from falling, taking passage between sky and earth only in small amounts of rain. This abstained also the preexisting erratic tap of rain on the roof above John's head, which, ending the only noise produced from the rainfall, initiated and thrust a strenuous and sudden muteness that seemed to encompass John's whole planet. This carried with it a moment where noise ceased, until, from above, John perceived two voices, one being his father's, and the other belonging to the doctor's. Immediately, John strained his ears.

"…which I hoped I could avoid."

John tried to lift his eyes toward the direction of where the voices stole from—the last sentence being produced from his father—but, regardless of the rain's dreamlike refrain, drops of water still managed to dribble on his upturned face, which made his reflexes crash, and the endeavor was soon terminated. John closed his eyes, hoping to heighten his hearing by temporarily forsaking another sensory organ.

"Jonas, there is no sense in ignoring debt. All good men are debtors once in their lives…"

"But not _all_ their lives, Isaiah. And I most certainly don't need it, now. Any other time—_any_ other—I would greet debt at my door like I would greet the Queen if she visited me; but if _now_ is the only time debt can stink up the threshold of my home, I wish its arrival as _unlikely_ as the Queen's. I'd rather have John grow up in a home that was without want."

John let his little brow furrow in the rain. He speculated musingly over what his father had articulated; debts and the esoteric Queen and thresholds. John connected them oddly with one another, as only a child's mind could, for, even though he believed he perceived the information accurately, the only subject that registered in John's mind was the pleasurable reminder of the Queen's wealth.

"Of course you do," the doctor's voice now spoke, "Of course you do; even I want John in a home like that, but you must think more logically. What if you owed the Queen money? I would find it hard to believe that she would withhold herself, as you so put it, to stink up your threshold waiting for her payment. Therefore her presence is as likely as the debt's that is bothering you now. Even the Queen herself is not above asking for her money."

There was an impertinent chuckle from Jonas at this rebuttal, followed by Welling's more light laughter, but, although try as he might, John found no humor with which to join.

"Oh, Isaiah… my concern is that I might as well even owe _her_ money, I am in such a crisis. Just last night, at Mrs. Bailiff's bakery, I—"

"—you did not have enough money to buy bread."

John's stomach lurched at the pause that infused between his father and the doctor.

"How," John heard his father ask, warily, "How did you know that?"

The answer came concisely: "John."

"_He_ told you?"

"He did. And he also told me something else."

"What?"

"Something corresponding with Captain Flint… a story of some sort… he heard from you." This sorely smote John's stomach to where it no longer lurched, but flopped heavily about inside him.

"Oh, _that_. That was a story I told him several years ago. Something must have simply reminded him of it…"

"Oh yes; something simple. Like your dilemma with Mrs. Bailiff's bread."

"_What_? What do you mean?"

"I mean just that, Jonas. John is a smart boy, and observes you. He knew full well of your bread problem last night, and knows full well the very cause, and not with absurd incongruity, either. John is aware that there is an inconsistent flow of money in his household; whether he is aware of what magnitude the flow is drying at, I cannot say. But he's connected it back to the salary you earn at your workplace, and so has concluded that more money needs be obtained."

"John _is_ a smart boy; that's exactly what needs to be done."

"_Jonas_. John has taken it upon _himself_ to acquire that missing amount, and claims he'll make you both as 'rich as kings'."

John, during all of this, had remained seated in the mud, the rain continuing to lessen, with mouth and eyes shut, so as to heighten his sense of hearing. When this information was passed, however, John's eyes snapped open. Welling had betrayed his promise to him that his secret copperpieces would not be revealed to his father! John bolted up to his knees, dug his little hands into the mud, and tore two fistfuls of grass out from the earth with a great cry from Welling's unwanted divulgence.

He was quick to amend his anger, however, knowing that he could be heard if he made enough noise, so he threw aside the dredged up dirt and sat back down.

Jonas had lost himself in a silence, and only again spoke after John's tantrum.

"But," Jonas protested, more to himself than his converser, "John has never exhibited any kind of interest in working. And," he added, becoming notably firmer than before, "_I_ don't want him to work. John needs to be educated rather than employed; education _is_ employment—without it, he'll live just like I am now, in miserable debt! I won't have it—he _will not work_!"

"Think with your head instead of your heart, Jonas, for once. Think how you will see more profit come to you with two incomes driving the family instead of your one. You would not live so pathetically!"

"Ha! Listen to you. _Pathetic_! John does not live pathetically now, Isaiah! He will live pathetically when his life becomes enslaved by earning money, and scraping it together in order to survive! How can I teach my son anything when I show him that a man cannot live and own his own house unless he is supported by another? What will happen when he grows up and takes after me, and he is accustom to having two incomes to live on instead of one, but, when I can't be there to give him that luxury any longer, he will sink because I neglected to teach him independence! What I need to show him is that he must educate himself and learn a trade! He must leave this place and find a job elsewhere with his knowledge so he can earn money and gain wealth! What sort of father would I be if I did not give him that?"

"What sort of education do you think he's gaining, Jonas? What trade do you think he's learning? _Your_ trade? Or mine, perhaps? Jonas, just before I came in here, John—like an expert, I'll not deny it—pick-pocketed two silverpieces from my very own coat! Is this the trade you're talking about? I see no other John has been practicing."

"_Pick_-pocketing?" Jonas repeated incredulously. "John is pick-pocketing?"

Pick-pocketing! John's heart now sank down at the level of his stomach, and both organs now flopped about; his stomach flopping hollowly against his ribs, his heart flopping with violent, rapid thumps. What a lowly recreant doctor Welling proved to be!

"Yes, Jonas," the doctor continued, steadily all of sudden, and quieter. "I don't know if this is an old practice of his, or if this was the first of that kind of events, but I do know he would have succeeded, had he not shortly admitted it thereafter."

John's breath was lost to him as he waited fervently for his father's response. The bowels of his stomach rocked with bitter anxiety. All had been revealed! What a torment it was for John, for another horror arose within him: what if his father could not conjure up his own courage to look at him again, after all Welling had disclosed?

Jonas's voice, however, was not heard for a long time. So, after a pause, Welling began to speak again.

"He's a good boy, Jonas. Don't despair—he's only trying to do what he feels is right by earning more money... and I believe it is the right thing to do, too."

Jonas suddenly spoke again, as if emerging from sleep. "…Where is John?"

"I left him on the porch. It is raining extraordinarily; I doubt he is not there now."

This was a new horror all its own! John was no longer sitting on the porch where the doctor had seen him previously, but sitting behind the house in the rain. Upon hearing this said, and hearing footsteps shuffle and cross to the door, John threw his weight forward and so heaved himself up on his feet and hands, but halted in this no less than animal position, and looked back at his hole.

Doctor Welling had betrayed him, as John had betrayed him before. This, then, was a debt in itself repaid; a sin for a sin; the betrayer betrayed, the victim avenged. John fell back into the mud and unearthed the seven coins, this time pouring them into his pocket void of guilt.

The rain, as if recognizing John's dispersal, began to intensify once again and adopted its tapping loudly on the roof, drowning out the sound of the doctor's and Jonas's voices.

With the precious metals chiming in his drenched clothes, and the weight of the guilt for taking Welling's four coins pacified, John flew on light, sprightly feet through the gloom to the porch of the house and returned to his place the moment Jonas stepped out of the door.

His father started upon observing his child, for John dripped with rain and mud, and stood, although slightly, shaking on his feet from cold. "John!" Jonas cried, reaching for the boy with both arms, "what have you done? Why did you go into the rain? Get inside!"

John was swung into his home and met with the breath of warmth he had sensed outside, and which had lent him such essential encouragement, but it now struck his heart with a throb of anguish, for the fear that his father would not forgive him of his—even though he abhorred Welling's treason—still guilty charge that remained inescapably with him.

Having been pushed through the door, his eyes met with the doctor's, and the glance was as though the two did not recognize one another. And yet Welling spoke, even though to John's father above him, substantially recognizable, amiably coming to John's defense as he so often had before.

"Ah, John's an ambitious little boy! 'Spare the rod and spoil the child', if you will, Jonas, and worry simply about getting him dry! Hello, again, John," Welling greeted the little Ursid cordially; "you had quite a bath, didn't you?"

"_Yes_, sir," John replied tiredly, although the affirmation must not have equalized the doctor's level of geniality, because Jonas narrowed his eyes warningly.

"Forgive him, Isaiah; John must be tired."

John, at this apology his father felt was owed to Welling, reevaluated the inflection he must have used to be so insulting, and determined that it must have been exceptionally curt indeed; however, with the unharmed countenance the doctor unfalteringly presented, John also determined that the curtness of his inflection had not been of a severe degree.

"No need! I'll take my leave now. It's fairly late, and Nathan will probably begin to wonder why I haven't returned. Good night, Jonas; good night, John."

Jonas, in turn, bid the same to Welling, in addition to bidding his son, the son's wife, and Welling's granddaughter the same, shook hands with the doctor, and opened the door for him.

Upon Welling's departure, Jonas turned to face his son with a pensive sigh. John looked at him with his eyebrows raised, and removed a blotch of mud from his cheek with the back of his hand. "John, I want to talk with you…"

"Okay."

Jonas, despite his initiation of a discussion, did not speak again until another preoccupied inspection of his son ensued and had done. He then gave another melancholy sigh and approached the other side of the room, producing a long piece of cloth, and he handed it to his son. "Here…first change and dry yourself."

John obeyed with celerity, accepting the cloth and adorning new clothes and a face rid of mud in such haste he only knew on rare, afflicted instances. The coins he placed inside the pillowcase on his bed.

When done, Jonas did nothing to pursue the discourse he had impetrated, but fed John his dinner, which, when John had been outside, he had correctly assumed to be cooking in their black pot and to be the remainders of previous meals.

Even after their dinner, Jonas spoke nothing of John's transgressions or gave implication of any impending punishment for them—he did not even conduct himself to be angry—but, rather, conversed with him freely, and had a smile for all John's comments. There was, however, always an underlying despondency in Jonas's demeanor, which the perceptible child did not allow go unnoticed.

After all of this, Jonas, while sitting in his wooden chair, finally bade John to go to bed.

"What time is it?" John steadily inquired.

Jonas only chuckled gently. "It's time for bed. _Go_!"

John, having been on the floor practicing his writing—since there was no other chair in the room—rose from his place with the purpose to yield to his father's request, but was only interrupted by him, his voice quite changed: "John."

The boy turned around to look at his father, his eyes big and attentive.

"John…you're… not sad here, are you?"

Slight confusion creased the boy's brow. "_Sad_?" John repeated, searching for the context in which the word had been placed.

"Sad, you know… unhappy."

"…No."

Jonas looked away, sinking into his thoughts, his chin placed heavily on his hand. "And, John… you want to learn how to read and write and understand math, don't you?"

"Yes."

"And you're not… _afraid_ of anything, are you?"

John laughed, although it was such an awkward, strange little laugh, it surprised him somewhat, as though he had heard someone across the room laugh. "What do you mean, 'afraid'? Afraid of what?"

"Please, John; answer the question."

"No, I don't think so."

Jonas now looked at him again, his hand placed over his mouth, his index finger resting underneath his nose as he applied his head to his hand. He looked at him squarely, but John could not seem to acquire his eyes, for they were looking beyond his own eye contact, and even beyond his physical presence. Jonas's eyes then closed, and his father issued another sigh.

"Thank you, John. Go to sleep now."

"Okay… good night, Father."

"Good night."

John crawled into his bed and rested his head on the pillow where his coins were hidden, and thought with glee that the scolding for pick-pocketing the doctor he had so horribly dreaded was obviously to be repealed, and he had been thusly absolved for it.


	5. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4:**_ John Silver; A Place of Wages and How They Were Obtained

"You know the old market place down by the ports, nay do you, boy?" The overgrown, red-faced woman asked of John Silver, her young, informal employee.

"Yes, Mrs. Thatcher," rejoined John, in somewhat of a dogged manner, "I _do_ know that market place."

"Just so. And you know the place there where they sell the fresh fish?"

"I do, ma'am, although not as much as the market place itself. My father doesn't have a taste brave 'nough for the market place's fish."

"Nix to your father and his taste buds, boy! No one asked for that remark."

John peered at her with his youthful, sensitive peripheral vision, and ensnared a rather malcontented Mrs. Thatcher, which was not an exotic trait for the woman, in his watchful gaze. John parried quickly, lowering his eyes back to the dry potato he was peeling, "What do you want me to do at the market place by the port?"

The woman's complexion seemed to grow even more sanguine as she turned from John's inquiry, for it seemed that the mere existence of it incensed her profoundly. She did, however, manage to deliver a resolve for him, and, in turn, came back around to face him after drawing forth one goldspecie and four silverpieces from her small purse.

"Go to the place and buy two fat trout fishes—those fish come in all kinds of sizes, so get two _big_ ones—and you can keep whatever's left."

"Whatever's left?"

"Aye, whatever's left of what I give you, and that'll be your money for today."

"But… there'll be almost _nothing_ left."

"Am I to hand over everything I've got, boy?" She asked him wrathfully, but with little gesticulation or change in face. "It is _I_ who must pay for a poor family; you're just lookin' for some sweets at the market!"

John reverted back to being staid. "Yes ma'am…" and then he added charily, "Is there a price limit on how much I am to spend?"

"I'm going t' tell you. Buy the best quality fish you can afford with that… if there's anything left afterward, keep it."

"_All_ of it?"

"All of it; but ask again, and I won't give it to you."

So John took the three money pieces and stole out of the house to purchase Mrs. Thatcher's fish, remarking to himself—however with no outwardly evidence—that she was the worst woman he had ever met indeed, and that no heart inside his chest would be broken if he paid for the least-favorable quality of fish and kept the excess money pieces for himself. This was, also, a deliciously malevolent idea, and as John pursued a zigzag course along the streets of his little town, he smiled impishly at it with increasing admiration for his own spite. His conscience, though, was of a stronger power, and possessed a still fast grip within the little boy, and as John traversed through the dirty streets in his sprightly manner, he could not find the apathetic character within him to execute his execrable scheme, and thusly laid it to rest, compromising with himself to buy a high-quality fish, but buy one low enough to quell his own financial necessities.

John had captured this humble employment under the ungainly Mrs. Thatcher the year before; Mrs. Thatcher being a woman left companionless during working days, since her husband worked three jobs in the expansion of a week, and since she was childless, for she had lost two twin infants after their premature birth.

John was then, accordingly, appointed to be Mrs. Thatcher's odd-job man—running errands, such as this mentioned; helping her with laundry, cleaning, and the occasional gardening—all of which John particularly loathed. All except the jobs when he helped her cook; only then did John muse with slight reverence at how deeply the ungraceful and the corpulent Mrs. Thatcher could suddenly fly on her feet and make the material in her dress twirl about her legs when in the kitchen. Everything was magic at mealtime; her hair would be pulled back and her beady eyes would brighten with an elegant shine that radiated about her small kitchen, and that beamed off her rusted appliances so that they shimmered like gold; and the steam from the pots would dance above, and all the spices would catch the air and blow about until caught by the nose of the impressed little John Silver, who always stood idly by, in silent smiles, until called forth.

The port, to where John was approaching on his quest for the trout, rippled in its own kind of dance and shimmer with its colorful and brilliant shifts of that great tapestry which a city puts on for a general assemble. The people in the port relaxed in application to their various modes of business as the crowds bustled; and all had one hand in their pocket to prevent it from being picked, and another out in front of them to greet and talk with whomever they were accompanied with. Here, it is true, there were the popular appliances of mass merriment that can be found in any crowded area—the inartistic shows of a theatrical nature, the gleeman with his box of music and the little monkey capering at his side, the street magician with his age-old but still effective productions, and the flower girls who sold their blossoms for a copperpiece. Today, all such personnel in correspondence weaved in and out through the inter-twining of the pedestrian traffic, echoed by the cries of mantabirds, and framed by the abyss of the cloudless sky and the towering sails of the docking ships.

The market was so proud as to be the core of this merriment, and grinned almost too broadly as it overlapped with peasants and their minimal money pieces, come to buy their food and clothing, and other basic human urgencies.

John Silver pushed lightly through the crowd, feeling the heat of the bright midday sun on his back. He stood a moment aside from the current of people to catch his breath and find his bearings, and to locate the foul-smelling fish side of the market of which he was destined. The light aroma of fresh bread drifted passed him, intermingled with the yellow smell of new apples, and the heavy, earthy smell of raw meat. John looked about him, his eyes squinting in the sun, and then continued to pursue the fish, for at last he'd found it.

"Two big trout fishes please, Sir," John requested from the Arcturian at one outpost of the fish market, and, placing the coins Mrs. Thatcher had given him on the table, save the goldspecie, added, "In whatever quality these will buy."

The Arcturian slid the coins into his hand and counted them, and then looked at John with one eyebrow raised. "These'll buy ye a-trouts like them," he answered strangely but confidently, gesturing loosely to a size of trout half the length of John's arm, which looked about thirty minutes old. The goldspecie John had withheld suddenly burned in his pocket like a handful of fire, but John replied obdurately, "Fine. I'll buy those two."

The trout were pulled down and wrapped in paper to protect them from flies, and the Arcturian presented John with a sack so the boy would not have to toil with the fish over his shoulder or under his arm, but in his hand like groceries. The exchange done, John swerved away and ran down the slope of the westward dip to the main docks—Jonas's workplace at the navy pay office was located easterly, and John was intelligent enough to avoid the eastern port—and flew down to the lines of ships exporting and importing goods.

Such a wonder John engaged himself in as he thirstily drank in this unfamiliar and breathtaking site; the hulls so mighty with their dark, concaved shapes; their scuppers watching John like eyes as he caprioled passed them in awe. The masts creaked with a surge of unleashed power, and the gentle sails billowed and pitched, resembling heavenly white angels drifting against the immortal blue of the Etherium.

The swarthy, coarsely-faced personages of those who sailed these ships and the Etherium were most impressive, however; as John watched them in a terrified pleasure as they hauled crates of goods from far-away planets in and out of ships, and sang brisk songs of space in a tune of gaiety, but in voices almost sounding devilish.

Many times John would be smiled at by one of them as he observed them in their work, and at previous times John's awe-stricken horror of their mysterious savagery would make him leap with adrenaline and he would fly from the man in a wild and panicked elation. Now, however, John was older, and although his petrified veneration still swelled within him, the boy's surges of adrenaline urged him to respond somehow opposed to fleeing as he did. He particularly felt this exigency to seize any opportunity that presented itself to correspond with one of these space fiends as he flitted about on nervous feet around them, his sack of fish bouncing after him in his quick jolts.

That very opportunity presented itself almost illusory, as if John, in his rattled movements while he watched them along the docks, had entered a new dimension—the strange spacers' own, esoteric orbit of blue space that stretched and survived in their minds as the land so lived in John. The young sailor—a human, although John knew him as part of the Terran species—had been watching with a marvel of his own at the little Ursid with the sack of trout, who was gazing with a longing fright at the ships and the spacers, and he at length decided to wave the boy toward him and ask him if he was lost.

"Hello, there!" was the first thing the young man called to the perplexed little creature, but, when the boy flinched at his voice and danced oddly and clumsily a little way from him, the sailor furrowed his brow with a light chuckle of confusion. "Hello, there, I said!" the man tried again, "Why don't you come over here? Have you lost your way?"

The inner struggle, if any took place, need not be described in John's horrified but curious little heart, and even as part of him drew back in fear, another, stronger magnet pulled him in the direction of the sailor summoning him, and these contradictory emotions intermixed, making John's approach crooked and hesitant.

"I don't _bite_," the Sailor assured in an amused manner as he studied John near him. Presently, the boy did indeed come closer, but it seemed as though an obscure and bizarre gravitational field prevented the boy from extending himself any further than that of a circuit of yards. Thusly, the young man perceived himself in an impenetrable aura—or the boy himself possessed one—which inhibited the usual space between another person and himself when he conversed with someone.

"I know, sir, that you don't bite; and I'm not lost, either." John answered him with a small simper breaking across his lips.

The char-colored young man crossed his arms over his chest, heedful of the boy's timidity, and smiling benignly. "Then what're you doing down by these docks?" and then lifting a lanate eyebrow, "With a couple of fish in a sack, too?"

At this John started with a jolt—Mrs. Thatcher's trout! Bought thirty minutes old, and now they were already an hour ancient!

"Oh, these," John rejoined quietly, "they're for Mrs. Thatcher."

The spacer cocked his young, dark head in a manner that made John's skin crawl with strange admiration. "Mrs. Thatcher? The… person you berth with?"

"Oh, no—no; she's just my neighbor. I work for her for money pieces."

"Aye? How much money did ye make for this errand?"

"One goldspecie, sir."

The Terran laughed loudly but sympathetically. "_One_ goldspecie? One and nothin' else?"

John pursed his lips at the man's amusement. Had it not been for John's immoralities, he would have received much less, and yet this sailor laughed at the more expensive amount. In fact, the goldspecie he had earned today had been the largest sum of money he had ever earned in a day during the whole year he had worked for Mrs. Thatcher. His curiosity then peaked; could he somehow obtain even more than one goldspecie in one place? "Well, she can't afford to pay me a lot…"

"Ye could get a job."

John shook his head, his morbid fright gradually subsiding with the gentle kindness of the young sailor. "I can't—my father won't let me."

The young man raised his opposite eyebrow this time. "Then how did ye get this one, for yer…?"

"Mrs. Thatcher? Well, this isn't really much of a job, sir, and I can keep it from him better than if I got a real one."

"Oh, I think it's a real one if you're earning some money, to be sure. And you can hide a real job… you could work at the docks; it's not hard t' get one unloading ships, and they like young males like you—they figure they've got more strength."

"A job _here_?"

The man laughed again. "Aye. Here—" and he proceeded to rise from where he sat, "I'll show you. It's simple."

John's terror seized him again, but the power of his curiosity and—we shall no longer deny it—underlying greed for a higher quantity of money compelled him to follow, although always remaining hesitant.

As they strode together down the wooden streets of the docks, other spacers in the same manner of dress as the one John hastened after greeted the man and John pleasantly, and some also whistled teasingly at the young man, and inquired upon John's presence, but the Terran responded only slightly to all of these salutations. Presently, John noticed a corpulent man—a man belonging to a species he did not recognize—at the end of a pier where a great galleon had ported. The Terran addressed this man colloquially, although, in response, the man of the unknown species seemed to disagree with it.

"G'afternoon, Tubby!" the Terran called, in a voice remarkably different than the one John had been spoken to with during their conversation, "I got a boy 'ere for ye who needs a job in exporting!"

With that said, John's fear caught in his throat as he suddenly found himself in front of the fleshy man, who also seemed surprised to suddenly behold him. Eyeing John with a disinterest, he asked, "What name have ye, boy?"

The wheels in John's head spun. He was suddenly made piercingly aware of where he was and with the type of people he had feared so terribly, and who had seemed so mysteriously and majestically fiendish and evil. He also wondered with an excited horror if he should give the keeper a false name; Jacob, Jerry, Jeffery—and why should the name keep the original first letter? It could be Isaiah, like Dr. Welling's, or Scott, Tyler, or William! William Hamilton!

"William…Hamilton."

John's heart stopped altogether as the keeper looked at him with an air of dissatisfaction; as if he disagreed with something new.

Then, however, the man spoke again, unsuspicious and still disinterested, "And how old be ye, young Mr. William Hamilton?"

"Twelve."

"_Twelve_?"

John swallowed and shifted his weight. "Yes, sir… I'm twelve years old."

The man looked up from John and threw a glance at the Terran who had lead John to him, where a pregnant silence ensued as the two engaged in a conversation of looks and expressions. Finally, the fat keeper looked at John again, and told him what seemed to John as harshly, "You're thirteen when you work here, and remember that."

John watched the man write something on a clipboard he had thus been carrying with a feeling of his body being dropped, and that he no longer existed.

"Have I got a job now, sir?" John asked brokenly.

"Aye—a job and a new age, to be sure, for here, at least. Today's no good; come tomorrow and you'll export crates."

When John returned with the trout to Mrs. Thatcher, he grandly presented her with the two-hour old fish, and informed her that she must find a new boy to be her odd-job man, for he would no longer be at her dispense.


	6. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5:**_ John Silver; an Unfortunate Event in Correspondence with His Home

Crates—the ones John was now unloading from docking ships, and earning three incredible and glimmering goldspecies for it—were strangely different from what John had so mistakenly assumed of them before his lucky employment at the docks. John had considered crates an object of invariable size and weight; always of the same idea of geometric consistency, with no one differing proportionately or in quantity from the next. These generalizations, however, as said before, were incorrect: The crates John was now ever so exposed to were actually of different shapes, sizes, weight, height, and depth, in as much as they were different in what they carried; and John eventually came to master the ability to judge the crate's mass by its size, and which kind of ship it came from. Previously, when John was a novice at exportation, he would never fail to lay hands upon a crate too voluminous for his faculty, and one of the other sailors would stoop to aid him in his strife, always with a clement laugh.

The sailors, too, were more than what John had first fabricated. These men—who had seemed so devilish to the ignorant witness outside their inscrutable coalition—were, like the crates, different in their personalities, ages, thoughts, feelings, and species, instead of being identically matched. These men John worked and was employed with—and also, increasingly more and more, were his profound friends, whom he spent more and more time with even after his shifts—were not fiends, but little less than seraphs; and became as much tutelary to John as Jonas. Many times, when they saw John approach to fulfill his daily four-hour shift, the younger sailors would call to him with their insoluble smiles: "And what say ye for today, Will?"—for William Hamilton was indeed his name in the throngs of this dimension—"will ye fly with us on the seven galaxies, and breathe the fine space air, and come back all brown and ruddy like th' rest of us?"

And John, although his spirit glowed like the very sun when they asked him this, and when he opened his mouth, if one looked closely, the rays of it could be seen bursting forth, responded always with, "There are shores of my life yet to be flown on, sirs, before _I_ can fly the fine space air!"

The fiends of space that John had so imagined, however, did truly exist in some instances, and when those malignant spirits were seen in John's port, the sailors he worked with stared; some with contempt, others with an odd wonderment, or they looked away. These miscreants of the Etherium reminded John of how he had imagined the devil: they wore red or black silken material that hung low from their belts or shoulders, and were adorned with scintillating knives, and some even with long rapiers at the hip. Their hair was long and gathered in filthy ponytails; their teeth were colored a dull caramel yellow; their eyes, which gleamed under their ebony-black triangular hats, beamed with an animal-like depravity. These tangible devils of the Etherium, John assumed with a grim trepidation, were even more horrible to behold than Satan himself; they were the most ghastly of all creatures John had ever seen.

There was a difference in John as well, that the young Ursid came to understand as he lived among his gentle savages of the ships. So withdrawn from the normality of what he was used to at his home, and so lost to his father's protection when he was among the ships and sailors, John inhaled a breath of his natural independence, and gained a sense of belonging, exotic to his former dimension. Among the men he was with now, John, if he wished to, could break out in feral shrieks of music from becoming restless with the stir and bustle of his port at the docks, and could expect to be greeted with plaudits, or even accompanied in the refrain. John felt as close to being a man as he had ever felt before in his seemingly preexistence at home; and he also felt exceptionally wealthy. He felt wealthier than he had ever imagined he could be in his preexistence—even wealthier than his father.

This inclination always rendered John into a state of somber concentration. How much had he left to earn to be as rich as a king? This question, sequentially, was succeeded by the revelation of all the coins he had so far obtained. Upon looking at them, however, he knew too well that kings had more money pieces than he, and so he diligently continued his secret work.

One afternoon, during one of these particular broodings of John's, and when he had done his shift and earned three more goldspecies, one of the younger sailors—an energetic, somewhat audacious canid, who took pleasure in talking to John—asked him, "What makes ye sit and think like that, Will?"

"I have a problem," answered John, responding as easily to the name 'Will' as he did his own.

The canid sailor put out his hand and rested it on one of the crates John was sitting against. "An' what sort of problem is that?" He inquired, sounding as if it were his own burden.

"How much money do kings have, Finn? How many goldspecies, d'you think?"

"Very little, I imagine."

This was a rapid, pungent offence. John's head spun up toward Finn to search his eyes for any jocularity in them, which he could usually successfully find, but he found none. "What're you talking about? They _must_ have more than very little, or they wouldn't be _kings_!"

The canid sailor sat down, now, laughing somewhat, either at John's misunderstanding, or his own. "No, no… well," and here Finn knitted his brow thoughtfully, trying to string his words together. "Well… _goldspecies_, like those ye have thar, in yer hand," he indicated, "aren't worth… all that much. Y'see, yer planet, a long time ago, set itself on what's called a gold standard, a money standard that has a basic unit of currency that's equal in value to and exchangeable for a certain amount o' gold."

"What's that got to do with kings?" John asked, bristling slightly.

"Well, the gold standard—recently, I believe, but afore ye were born, I think—has lowered the value of yer planet's money. They never meant to, 'course… but too much money were produced, and then, to balance the planet's money, now no more money is being produced at all. So, kings don't have a lot of goldspecies, since goldspecies aren't worth a lot."

John raised his eyebrows, slowly, with dismal comprehension. "How much are they worth?"

"I c'n on'y compare them to two other currencies: the currency of the Canid and of the Terran. Now, in Canid currency, yer gold specie's worth about a pintt. In Terran currency, it's about worth of a… quarter."

John's heart, despite his exceedingly vague of knowledge for other planets' currencies, sank at the sound of the currencies the sailor named; they sounded so little of value.

"Is a quarter and a pintt _bad_, Finn?" He asked falteringly.

"It depends on how much ye have. How much have ye got, Will?"

John showed the Canid the three in his hand, and then explained that he kept nineteen others at his home under his pillow, and seven silverpieces and four copperpieces along with them. Finn contorted his face in thought. He then replied musingly, "Yeah, I suspect that's about as much goldspecies as kings've got."

John was suddenly overcome with a wave of despair. The irony of his plight stabbed his heart so that he nearly handed Finn the goldspecies and quit his job. If all the money he knew of was not worth even kings to boast, how could he make his father happy by making him rich? He certainly could not succeed by working the way he was.

"What makes ye wonder at kings and their goldspecies, anyway?" Finn asked lightly, and with his blithe grin, which made John's melancholy emotion swell anew.

"Oh, Finn," John cried, "I'm a _fool_! How could I not know of the gold standard, or how much my money _truly_ is worth?"

"What're ye saying? So ye didn't know—who cares?"

John hung his head above the blighted goldspecies, which still glimmered radiantly as they did before, but with a new, dull, insignificant shine. "Finn… you don't understand. I wanted to… I wanted… I was _supposed_ to earn a lot of… but…"

Finn furrowed his brow again at the boy. "Ye got plenty of money, Will."

"I've got a lot of _worthless_ money."

The Canid sailor laughed. "T'aint _worthless_, boy! Why, pennies, copperpieces, and arras are at least worth _something_, and they're the least amounts of all three currencies we've talked about! Everything's worth something, to be sure."

"Fine, but they can't make my father and me rich."

There was a heavy pause. John pocketed his goldspecies, and decided to go home, until Finn responded again. "They can't make ye rich, but they can still _buy_ ye things, and ye may lay to it."

John's eyes drifted sadly toward the Canid's. Certainly, his ignoble money pieces could help him purchase something, but nothing that could achieve John's hope of making his family wealthy. John did, however, wonder at what he could afford with his nugatory pieces, and wondered also that if—because he could do nothing for his family—he purchased something on a more selfish level, it would be pardonable.

"How?" John rejoined, tepidly.

Finn, in great contradiction to John's irresoluteness, grinned extensively. "Thar's a good bit o' food that c'n be bought with yer pieces. Even better, I seed a smart hat and a comely little coat in a window at one o' them shops down on the wharf. If ye go an' get yer other goldspecies and other such pieces, I'll take ye thar, if I remember where I seed it. Yer as thin as a twig for yer species, and those clothes ye always wear make ye look all the thinner. Go get yer money pieces, Will, and ye c'n buy some warm clothes!"

John's mouth watered unconsciously, as though he were going to buy himself a feast. Clothes in abundance were such a lacking commodity in John's blank little home, and the gaping opportunity to salvage what he could afford with his own dispensable earnings was nearly ineluctable for John. The young Ursid forgot completely of his father's possible deficiencies, and agreed with exhilaration.

The deal was then commenced; John returned swiftly to his home—where Jonas had yet to retire, for his employment at the pay office would not be done in another hour—and collected his money pieces.

Finn waited on the corner of the wharf, where John rejoined him with his pieces. Finn had, meanwhile, searched out the quarry and had pinpointed its whereabouts with success, so, with much furor, the two went together to buy it.

At length, and infused with an ardent spirit, John slipped on the handsome blue cloak, and fingered the velvet facings; the cap to match was brought to him, which fit amply on the top of his head. The small figure in the mirror of the shop stood like a painting, the adornments somewhat separating John from himself for a moment. With one coat draped over the shoulders, and a blue artisan cap, a pauper's boy like John could seem as though descended from the blood of sovereignty; it would have been difficult for even the most disdainful of strangers, if they had but walked in the shop and inspected John, to place him correctly in society.

The reflection of Finn appeared in the mirror through which John delightedly studied himself, and the sailor said softly, "C'mon, Will. Let's buy it afore someone else might."

John bought it lustily, and with great rush. The coat and the hat came out to demand eleven and ten—eleven goldspecies and one silverpiece—and John gave the man twelve goldspecies and told him to keep the change. As Finn was lent a mighty convulsion of laughter at this, they hastily removed themselves from the shop so the two could fly down the wharf with all the excitement they could bear. They cried with blissful, incoherent music, laughed until both their faces were purple, and danced in the streets with John's new coat and hat.

Their celebration, however, was short, and presently Finn disclosed that he was needed back at the ships at the approaching time.

"What time is it?" John asked, breathless, and enveloped warmly in his new cloak.

"Half-passed five, Will; it's getting late. Go home and show yer pap what ye bought."

John's father! Here was a new excitement that inundated inside John far more than the first. Jonas, John knew, would be proud to see that his son now wore a warm covering and a matching hat—John had never worn apparel quite like them. John could envision his face—the gladness shining from his eyes! He would gingerly take off the blue coat to examine the seams, and his face would brighten even more and his eyes twinkle with joy to find the velvet facings—the ones John would keep hidden from him until he found them.

"I'll do that, Finn. Goodbye."

"G'night, Will. I'll see ye tomorrow."

"Finn?"

"Aye?"

"Thank you."

John broke into a hard pace down the streets of the port, toward the eastern hemisphere, in the direction of the navy pay office to greet his father there and walk home with him in the setting sun. As he approached, he could see the figure inside the booth move about in the small room. John rushed around it to the left side, and knocked on the door to surprise his father.

John's grin, however, faded immediately when it was not his father who opened the door.

"Yes, young'un?" a Chameleor addressed him with a gentle voice, but a face hard and lined tell-tale of his potential aggression.

John's happiness choked within him. Confusion now churned inside him, and that acute sense of child intuition rang like ominous bells inside his head, singing that horrible yet familiar dirge of the stomach tightening and the quickness of breath that comes when something is not right. "Where—where is my father? Jonas Silver; where is he?"

The Chameleor straightened, his expressionless ferocity hardening even more. "Silver has owed me money since I gave him this job. And it hasn't been just me—there've been hundreds of thousands of people complaining about his debts to them, and I got to where I couldn't deal with it."

John's heart beat so heavily, his voice began to shake. "You fired him, then, sir?"

"I did more n' that—I got the police out here to put a stop to this money business, and they hauled him away to the debtors' prison in the square."

John's heart now smote inside him; the stillness of shock froze up through his veins, and he stood agape, as though trapped between comprehension and bemusement. His throat constricted and he began to cough uncontrollably. The energy of just minutes before was drained from him by the ground he stood on, and, as though to escape from it draining him as well, he reeled from the booth, and staggered a little ways off from the man there, as the last rays of the sun fell behind the horizon.

The Chameleor had been watching with a grotesque, incoherent look, and now muttered, more to himself than John, "Had I known he had a son, I'd have told the police to find him, too. Well, I suppose I'll tell them now…"

Upon overhearing that said, for John had quieted enough to match the dead's reticence, John exploded up from the ground with a wild, inarticulate protestation, followed by the pitiful but powerful cry for his father. The protestation and the cry was then repeated shrilly, brokenly, and then John sprinted away from the pay office, with all the force he could sustain and find within him, which seemed so very slow and insufficient to John's blackening mind.

If there was anything the Chameleor might have called out after John, the little Ursid did not hear it. All John's mind could understand was the prison, and the square, where Jonas and he had walked together many times before, which he was running toward with all the strength he might possess. His new coat—his beautiful, new blue cloak that made him sing in the street with Finn—felt heavier and heavier as he raged down the dark streets, and he finally shed it by a tree, and let it remain there.

At the prison doors, John was caught by the sleeve, and brought face to face with a guard. "What're you doin', you little imp? Come to steal something?"

John's strength was then drained again, and he fell completely limp in the guard's hands as he breathed laboriously. "Please… please… sir, I beg you to let me go," John pleaded, in the deepest of whispers. "My father… Jonas Silver… is here… please; sir… all I want is to talk with him… please…"

There was a pause that was as heavy as a mountain, and a silence as fierce as thunder.

John's sleeve was released. "Go in, then."

John lurched and toddled forth with what little strength he could suddenly find. The interior of the prison was opaque, and John could see nothing but the blue window of night sky at the end of a long hallway. "Father!"

Silence, and then: "John?"

John leapt in the direction of the response, passing cells of other inanimate members of debt that lay asleep in their imprisonment. After what seemed like a decade, John found his father gripping the bars of his cell, searching, too, for John's appearance. "John! Thank God…" he heard his father's voice as he reached out for him through the bars. "Are you all right? You're shaking…"

John could not answer him.


	7. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6:**_ John Silver; New Conditions of Lifestyle and New Hardships

It soon became eminently impossible to find John Silver. The little Ursid seemed to have melted into the churning of the crowds at the port, or into the gray, morose streets of his poor town; he easily disappeared entirely in front of the eyes that sorely searched for him. The house—where the boy could be seen living in with his father since he was born—stood alone and dim, sagging in its emptiness, as though something inside no longer supported it. The vacuous shelter remained unlit, unused, and desolate. It resembled an old man, bent and tarnished, and looking at the world sadly through his veiled eyes. The house's only visitor was Doctor Isaiah Welling—the amicable and tender man who had heretofore established a sentimental connection with the family—since he regularly perambulated around the house in search for evidence of John's having been there. His benevolent scrutiny, however, was always in vain.

Nevertheless, he continued to pursue the lost child. Occasionally, Welling, departing toward the house in which he sought for John, would see the police—commencing an enterprise to search about the house in pursuit for the very same youth—as he approached. When such circumstances occurred, he would mill idly amongst this crowd as the mildly-concerned passer-by, asking questions of a fastidious kind; had they found the boy? Oh, no? Had they sniffed out a lead to where he might be? No luck, eh? Have you any idea if the child is still alive? Alive, he _is_, you say! And what makes you think so? Oh, the child's father sees him? I see.

Jonas Silver, now an authentic malefactor in the grievous arms of the Marshalea Debtors' Prison, answered affirmatively that he did indeed see John once a week, or, in some instances, every other week. He could not say, however, that John mentioned where he had come from, or where he was going to go from the prison after his visit. When asked, it was not seldom that John would laugh, loudly, like a thing that did not possess a continuance beyond the cell of the prison; or—although this happened more sporadically—John would be convulsed into an impassioned rage, and strike the iron bars that stood hard against his fists, until Jonas awkwardly captured John in his arms as he reached for his son through the cell, and held him enduringly until John calmed.

John's visits to his father were also erratic in nature; he would never arrive at a specifically appointed time, nor did he appear near the same time he had visited before; but—serving as the only stability in Welling's postulation for John's agenda—it was infrequent when John would only visit Jonas for a short engagement.

Welling concluded with caliginous gloom that Jonas Silver was the only person who was allowed audience with John any more. The boy remained hidden under the curtain of color that cascaded down the streets of the ports, the square, and his hometown, to where Welling, in deep tribulation—when hope would elude him as much as the boy he sought did—would intermittently feel John had blurred from the mortal world he knew, and had transformed into an entity only Jonas claimed sighting.

But his inner strength would renew in the rare fortuity when John's face—still as extant as his own—would peer out from beneath the swirled interior of the streets, and look at him impishly, and then would fade into the undulations of his hiding place once again, and Welling would have his proof that John was still humanly attainable.

Twelve-year-old John Silver was afraid; although he was still humanly attainable, he could barely attain himself. The first night of Jonas's arrest, John slept fitfully by the cell his father was bound to, but woke up in the streets next to the prison, with no memory of the guards somehow placing him there. Somewhat detachedly, John, from this point in the morning, continued on like the day before; he proceeded to the port to attend to his job there, and acted as though the night before simply had no reality.

It was only when, at the end of the day, as he approached his home and his father was not there, John comprehended the verity of his father's imprisonment, and that he no longer had anyone to support and care for him. His apperception, although numbed, drove him from his dwelling, and led him confusedly through the wharfs from which he had come, now darkly and hideously enchanted by the night. Fits of terror would then spasm through his little frame, until he collapsed near one of the piers and slept deeply.

John spent his nights wherever he could, thinking only once of taking refuge in Welling's protective shelter, but the very fear that now consumed him and influenced him divulged him from the thought, with a disoriented conclusion that Welling would not welcome him because he had pick-pocketed his four silverpieces a year ago.

The shelters John would acquire were predominantly ones by the wharf, either huddled in a mass of ropes left out by sailors, under a tree, or—if fortune favored him—in an unlocked ship's hold, or an unkempt, abandoned shed. Nights spent at his home saw their demise some time after Jonas's arrest; John was awoken during one night while he slept there, and, realizing it was a group of police inspecting the property in search of him, he slipped out of the house unnoticed, and never returned.

His lucky employment at the docks soon had its demise, as well. John, now living on only three goldspecies a day, could afford little at the market place, and oftentimes John would unknowingly purchase food highly perishable, which would decay or lay victimized by insects overnight and leave John without leftovers—on which Jonas fed the family most of the time—and so John would have to buy more to keep himself fed, or he would have to go hungry until the next day. This inconsistent diet, comprised of only one meal a day besides, forsook John to physical fatigue at an easier expense, and he fell more and more behind as John's body searched exhaustively for the energy it was used to having.

The sailors swarmed in an austere cloud about him, void of the once familiar and gentle friendship they had once represented to John. They seemed as though he was a trespasser among the ships and crates as he suffered through his enervation—they could not recognize him; John's exhaustion was anomalous, and they feared he had caught a disease, as so many spacers were superstitious and wary of illness when John was a child—and John, struggling under the strain of his frailty and the weight of the crates, disappeared from his transient welcome to their inscrutable dimension, and he suddenly again feared them with a new horror.

The little Ursid, now with no accord to any individual save his father in the Marshalea—and fought for none after this detachment, besides—separated strangely from his identity; his mindset dropped wearily into simple routine, shutting down any emotional response to his own prisons that seemed to rise up about him. He lived a long period of time in this mental reduction, wandering aimlessly through his ports and wherever he could find shelter. He now moved through the crowds of people at the ports as though dreamlike, or like one dead, with no requisite purpose among the living. The only circumstance John would wake from this state was when he visited his father.

John, however, continued to return to export crates with these strangers until finally the keeper, the one who had hired him when the Terran had presented John to him, said that John's function was no longer necessary.

This threw the Ursid boy into an inconsolable, violent, wrathful depression, but, despite his great misfortune, and the sense of profound hopelessness that clutched and choked at his spirit, this explosion of misery was brief. He decided with severity that the adoption of Doctor Welling's services was the only chance he had of his survival, and his only opportunity to see his father remitted out of the Marshalea. This decision, however, despite its resolve, was not enacted—the thought was perhaps even as brief as John's depression—and John's mind abandoned it.

The rejection of his conclusion was thusly initiated when John rediscovered the benefits of theft. Suddenly, through this vile immorality, John quelled his vengeance on the world's devilish acrimony by purloining from the creatures of its port. Suddenly, John could harvest anything he longed for by a swift exploration through a man's coat pocket that stood beside him on a street corner, or an inquisition through a woman's purse that idly hung in front of John's nose like a baited fishhook.

John replaced his lost occupancy rapidly and without hesitation, and found his own feet with which to stand upright in the streets of the port, instead of his former bearings where he clung to the aid of his father.

The creativity that once flourished in John's childhood now reinstituted itself again with ways to embellish his thievery. He would act as though starving; he would seem homeless—both of these not entirely fraudulency—and now he would be a poor beggar's son who would be frenziedly abused if he did not come home with money—or food, if he so desired to gain this instead of the latter—now he was a blind orphan who would explain to victims that he could find no employment, and sometimes he would simply lay out a piece of cloth and sonorously weep in a public vicinity where the crowds grew thickest and stagnant.

After his escapades, John would huddle underneath the shadow of a pier or bridge and eat what he would buy with his earnings, very pleased with himself indeed, and dream of the great many things John would do for his father. First and foremost, he would pay for Jonas's freedom from the prison when he would save enough money pieces, and then he would pay for two berths on a ship dispatching to another planet, and there he would purchase a house—an extravagant house; brick, stone, or perhaps even marble—and he dreamed of himself rich, and of his father happy.

For now, after a month's expansion, John assuaged these dreams somewhat with the fact that he became talented enough in his secret trade to bring his father little gifts—portions of food, peppermints, a comb, handkerchiefs; and once there was a golden pocket watch on a chain—which gave Jonas an enthralled incredulity that delighted John.

"Where did this come from?" his father would ask him, looking at him with a playfully suspicious smile.

"I've found my expertise, Father," John responded lightly, "and I'll get you out of here, and make us both as rich as we could possibly imagine with it."

And Jonas, unaware of John's evil expertise, wanted very much to believe—at the very least—in the former of John's promises.


	8. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7:**_ John Silver; The Light at the End of the Hall

John Silver's term of improved economical freedoms seemed to have a promising longevity. No longer confined by his fear of the fierce society he had been born in, he stepped lightly along out in the sunshine, which fell on all alike, who cared little, and did not seem aware of its glow.

Although hardly progressed in the scale of age—disregarding the progression of a number of eight months passing—John did appear more mature than his first night alone as he now traversed down the stone streets of the wharfs. He no longer flitted on birdlike feet with his sprightly quality, but clung to the ground with his feet, as though he could no longer float above it as he could when he was younger. His unattended footsteps in the sunlight on the ports landed with a deaf thunder in the midst of the ubiquitous crowds', and his eyes, ever watchful, now regarded the pockets of the creatures he walked among acquisitively. His guise was beggarly and tattered, for he only bought food from what he gained from the pockets of others, and his clothes very conspicuously betrayed his sad heritage.

The sun—which shone on all alike, as said before—was a bright, impeccable beacon of gold that poured over the ports and creatures who walked it. Its inescapable presence beamed down on all who stepped from the shadows, and cheered them with its warmth and affection, as any child would take comfort in the affections of a mother. John, however, with the sun on his face and his stout stance impervious to its affectionate rays, took on the sun with a kind of sick and morbid mistrust, for, in his lonely heart that was thrown from childhood so quickly, he perceived its only purpose to shine and reveal the malignant debtors' prison of Marshalea, where his father remained trapped.

John's father had grown pallid and thin as his imprisonment persisted. Oftentimes, John would visit with a small amount of candy or rich foods he could gather from the market place in the square near the prison, and Jonas ate edaciously, but only after he forced John to certify and repeat that he had satisfied his own hunger first. Very rarely did John admit to having hunger, for he learned that if he did, his father would not eat what he brought him, but beg him to eat it instead.

Jonas's cell was primitive and filthy, as so many prison cells were in those times of John Silver's youth, and it was prohibited for Jonas to exit beyond the bars of his dungeon under any circumstances. The weight of the confinement bore cruelly down on Jonas's weak character, and the Ursid became speedily frail from lack of enough food—quelled slightly by the slices of meat or cheese his son occasionally managed to bring him—and John could detect that his father had diminished in health.

John's visits dwindled.

Thievery was a humble occupation, and although John's scrounges through other people's belongings placated his most basic needs, this employment could not offer John a great amount of money to save for Jonas's bail from the Marshalea. John's larceny was then increased when he realized his father was fragile, and John would commit his crimes for days to earn money, but could never gain it fast enough to keep himself alive and still pay for Jonas's release.

"Maybe I have _not_ found my expertise after all," John mused aloud to himself one day while visiting his father in the Marshalea. "I seem to be able to stand on it when it's just me, but I can never get enough money to help _you_ get out of here."

Jonas regarded his son with remorse, and offered quietly, "I'm sorry I brought this on our family, John. If you've found a way to support yourself without my help, please, then: Don't worry about me."

John lifted his eyes to his father's face, feeling a dull stab of grief upon seeing the thick iron bars close in around him. Shifting his weight and leaning his head on one of these bars, John's eyes fell again to their former inspection of the floor, and he chewed on one of his nails. "But I _have_ to get you out," John responded at length, dropping his finger from his mouth and placing it in his pocket. "I've already promised to get you out."

John heard his father chuckle and he lifted his eyes again inadvertently, but did not look at his father, for his gaze was caught by a shaft of streaming sunlight pouring into the dim prison from the little window at the end of the short corridor of cells.

"John, I understand if you can't help me out of the Marshalea. It's perfectly fine—no one will be offended if you can't single-handedly rescue me from my debts. You're my son; I want to see _you_ succeed, not help _me_ to."

"But that's just it!" John rejoined, his eyes dropping once more to the floor as his voice rose slightly, "I _am_ your son! Just as you are my father. If I was in there and you were out here, would _you_ not help _me_ to get out? Don't I have the same obligation, then?"

"Only if you want to have it, John," Jonas said, with an even and deep tone to bring John's voice down. "Only if you want it."

"I _want_ it. I want to help you out of here. I want to take you far away. I want to make us rich on another planet… I want to make you _happy_."

Jonas smiled simply, and slowly rested his own head on the opposite side of the same bar John's head was against. "You said it yourself: _you_ are my son. John… _you_ have brought me more joy than any riches could ever have given me."

John did not speak after this last expression of—what registered to John as—oppressed despondency, and did not, as he should have, register it as a sign of Jonas's devotion. John reflected upon himself briefly during this mutual pause between them, and felt undeserving of such a comment as that—despite the lie John assumed it to be, presented forth because of the resignation of a doomed failure. John had done nothing to make his father joyful; he only brought another mouth to feed into Jonas's home, which then brought Jonas into debt, which brought him here, where he was closed off from the world and the sunlight from the window by the thick iron bars. And now he only spoke of John failing to release him and making him rich—the only way John could make him happy!

The little Ursid felt a sting run up his nose and to the corners of his eyes.

"John?" Jonas spoke again.

"Yes, Father?"

"…Will you say it with me? Who are you the child of?"

John's eyes now welled with this brutal reminder of their once unencumbered lives outside the prison world, but he responded to this question—after a sigh—as he had for twelve years in a steady voice: "I am the son of my father, Jonas Silver. I am _John_ Silver."

"How could you be the son of him? You look nothing like Jonas Silver."

"That is because, my father tells me, I am mostly my mother's child, but I was given as a gift by her to him."

"And tell me of your mother, John Silver."

"She had the eyes of the stars, hair the color of the earth, the lips of the rose, and the skin of the moon."

"And as do you, John Silver?"

"I have all but her eyes of stars, for I have my father's eyes, whose eyes are but of the blue sky."

This last clause of their recitation crumbled inside John's mouth as he tried to control his sorrow. He repeated the words in order to repair his error: "whose eyes are but of the blue sky." John was then able to regain his composure, and told his father gravely, though strangely mournful at heart, that the sunlight called him away from the prison, and that he could ignore its beckon no longer.


	9. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8: **_John Silver; Dealings with Pirates and What Comes of It

The incident last described, the conversation between John and his father—although externally the same—really represented two separate purposes to either collocutor; and, as John strode quickly away from the Marshalea with his now prominent step, he brewed over the conversation like a nervous cat. The still yet naïve intellect of John Silver now bore down a new, sufficiently plain path, although, indeed, not the same path he first thought himself to tread. He decided with resolve to free Jonas of his sentence immediately, for it shocked him how weak and thin he had become by every visit, and the last conversation which had occurred gave John the impression his father had given up all hope of escape. He would accomplish freeing Jonas immediately, then, by obtaining a new occupancy—hopefully under one who could afford to pay him generously—with which to combine his success in his theft, and therefore earning far more money than when he practiced either disassociated.

John's growth away from his shy and sensitive reserve had only to facilitate this scheme. As mentioned erewhile, John Silver no longer occupied the same position in which we witnessed him in earlier appearances. Truly, his wits sharpened, and his sense of people deepened. John had become the Proteus of human interaction; he could pluck their inner thoughts like a musician tentatively plucks his instruments, and could detect their social tendencies as that identical musician can tune his melodic devices, and then play them with a voice and a demeanor which appealed to his audience until he received what he desired—money; which perhaps, coincidentally, the musician hopes to receive as well.

And if he could please people into giving him money with his eloquently laced tongue, he could certainly charm people into employing him. Thus, John ran down the wharf to the north hemisphere.

The northern hemisphere of the ports of John's planet stood away from the Market Place on the west, and, even stranger, away from even the rest of the hemispheres in the compass, as if it had long ago been separated from the others' kindred rose. Or, even more presumable, it had long ago seceded from the circle of their cardinal points to inhabit its own nonpareil sphere. The reader shall be persuaded to believe the latter of these two possibilities, for the north mothered the wealthy at its reclusive bosom, and—as it was the conviction of many during these times—the wealthy and the poor had a most strict, natural segregation.

The north hemisphere, despite this distinct disjunction between social classes, did indeed bear witness to the worsened dregs of the wealthy, or—and even more customarily—the abject nomads of the Etherium that habitually leaked into the nonconformist north from the docks; or, to name them as they have already been termed before: John's fiends of space.

By degrees, and not very slowly, did John—as his lifestyle altered during his father's imprisonment—find within him, as it is apt with any other being when a person stands out with any eminence in their opinion, a type of general regard ultimately grown up with reference to these pirates in John's mind. It is a credit to the innocence of a child who holds unhappiness undercurrent in his heart, that, if he feels a congruity with any race of people, his heart more readily loves than hates such identification.

It was perceived, too, that while John still did hold them in high veneration because of his empathy for them, and for the subconscious empathy he felt they had for him, he also marveled at them for their rich attire and intrepid mien. John could see their exquisite jewels of scarlet, azure, and emerald glittering in the fantastic embroidery of their costumes; the graceful and cunning curve of their swords that hung from their sides, as though the embodiment of their violence was kept at the convenient post of swinging within their arms' reach. Their hats—as black as the space they braved—were usually continually dusted with gold fabrics, or lined with thin golden chains that supported their great feathers. Indeed, these men were as rich as the people who lived in the north hemisphere, and were content to unabashedly flaunt it. They were, however, immoral in ways one cannot express, and the people of the northern hemisphere easily placed them in a lower class than theirs.

John, convinced that such rich, immoral creatures would not be frugal with the wages of their workers, slid into the crowds of the northern wealthy—a crowd of which was considerably less congested than the other hemispheres—and glided tentatively through toward the docks and the docked ships.

His impressed fright of these unsound fiends easily clenched him again, as it could easily overtake him when he was younger, and instead of consulting them, he paced up and down the docks high above on the spire of a small hill where he could see them—his hands deeply plunged into his pockets—and endeavored to summon up any strength to accost them for a job exporting their freight.

John's fright proved of strong endurance, having surmounted the extensiveness of the eight months' expansion lacking the exposure to these space gentlemen, for he could not summon anything more venturesome than this old fear. John, staunchly regardless, reminded himself wearily of his three goldspecies long since earned at the job of exporting for the sailors, and he piqued his natural greed, which writhed inside him like a caught serpent against his horror of these pirates.

Following a period of time passing, John, exasperated with his ambivalence, decided he was opposed to further extending his vacillation, and he (after a swift glance down the slope of where he stood over the planks) spirited silently down until he crept close to the crowd of colorful spacers—there were about five—where they stood idle and languidly amongst themselves, circled around a function of merriment obscure to John; although it can be suggested with confidence that the enterprise was the pastime of gambling.

John approached close to one of them, but the amalgamation of scents of foreign spices, putrid ships, alcohol, and the rust-mustard odor of coins in the palm of a hand impacted John's senses and caused him to recoil to a safer distance—this, or the simultaneous event in which the men cried aloud, either with joy or disrelish, which occurred as John neared them. The pirates, still all the while, remained unconscious of his presence.

Regaining himself, John, now with his courage doubled to tenfold portion from this sudden excitement, neared the group again, cautious of their outbursts.

He drew himself up to the same man—a creature most slovenly in appearance, or, as much slovenly as we can say from a hind view; with a tousled, black crown of hair that fell in lengths about the neck, save the very monarchial center, which remained; or, rather, had become an imperially bare pink, resembling a comfortable egg in a nest—and John noted with intrigue that he was, however, the impressive owner of a fine red coat. This was of superior appeal that prevailed over the other inferior attributes.

John's fingers itched, as any thief's that lived merely on the pilferage of pockets would. He could feel the gold and silver he would pull from this bald man's coat; and he could imagine how he would be able to wear an oily, tri-cornered hat adorned with red and green jewels, and, in the sortilege and magic of his childish imagination, he foresaw himself also draped in his little blue cloak with the velvet facings in accordance with his new headpiece. What a trove of glowing affluences he fancied himself finding; millions of miles of such prosperity by simply opening the pocket and peering inside!

John thrust his hand forth, after a moment's pause; and then, suppressing his urgency, withdrew and extended it again, slower, following a nervous glance at the man, who, concurrently, beat his fist upon a wooden barrel once in irritation with the gamble.

The little Ursid inhaled slightly as his fingers moved along the lining of the pocket. He traced it tentatively, for he could not allow the man to notice the movement. Biting now on his lower lip, John slid his hand inside until his fingers stretched into the opening. His fingers sank, until at last their tips reached the bottom.

There was never a more unoccupied pocket.

John's hand quickly retreated, and he quailed back a step or two; slightly bewildered at the idea of emptiness in the pocket he had moments ago held such faith in. He watched the man's ponderous shoulder blades with now wearied security, and moved from his right to his left, and found a new pocket on the other side. This would have been an auspicious outcome had John exposed what he had believed he would in the preliminary pocket, but—as it is difficult for children to lose their heart easily—he stole again to his left side, and slid his fingers in this pocket.

Indeed, John did brush against a cold, circular object that rested at the bottom of this pocket, but, given the man's exercise of gambling, John would have had more of a chance for this object to be a button. John could scarcely reveal the entity, however, and decide whether it truly was what he sought, for just as his fingers lighted upon the object, a voice from across the man resounded with accusation.

"'Ere! Barak, ye got a scoundrel at yer pocket, man!"

John recoiled as the bald man turned in dumb shock and saw him. The child drew himself up with fear in the shadow cast by this great man's physique, and then, before he could move, John vaulted vigorously to one side, but was sent sprawling to the planks by another man. John looked up and saw five of them bending over him. One had drawn his sword, which shone white when it caught the light of the sun. John scrambled off the arm he had fallen against, pushed himself up, saw an opening between two of the spacers, and flew for his escape. John's throat tightened against itself, however, and he was swung back into the circle of pirates with the collar of his shirt, and then, roughly, it was exchanged for a brutal confinement of the arm.

John was then thrust in front of the bald man in the red coat, who demanded, "What did ye think ye were doin', ye lil' devil-urchin? Answer quick, boy, or I'll have yer yella' hide on the end o' va switch afore long!"

John swooned with fright. "A harmless action, I assure you! Let go, I pray you, you great nightmares, and I might offer a pleasant and compliant companion if you let me search your pockets further!"

Good heavens! Had John Silver actually spoken? For one fluttering moment he believed that these words had passed his lips. But they were uttered only within his imagination, and he realized with heavy relief that the insulting phrase had been unarticulated. Shortly afterwards, however, he realized that his lack of vocalization rendered a pursuing silence, and John suddenly—with great nausea—envisioned his skinned body on the end of a stick. John quickly began to instigate a reply that would purge him.

"Sir, I beg your pardon," John asserted, pulling slightly against the other man's hand, but was not yet freed, "I only meant to get your attention. You see, I simply wanted to ask about a job exporting your crates, and I thought that, from what I could see, you were busy; and I thought that perhaps I might tug at your coat tail, for I am not yet tall enough to reach your shoulder, much less tap it. I'm sorry for the confusion, sir, truly."

With luck—or, as many would argue: With the merciful interference Providence would allow a liar and a pickpocket—the man in the great red coat, Barak, was indeed of relatively tall stature, and his shoulders rose to an immense height which, without much calculation, was obviously too high for John to reach.

The atmosphere did truly relax; however the sword still gleamed its conflagrant white and John's arm still remained ensnared within the fist of a pirate. Finding the ability within himself to study them, John observed their silken material and clothing; the jewels of other foreign planets cradled on thick rings around their fingers, and the swords yet in their holsters. Their odors of the ships and creatures and alcohol of countless different, mysterious lands floated with a grim pleasure around his nostrils, and, glancing at his arm, he realized with a ghastly fascination that the hand which held him so fast was want of two filthy, dark-brown digits.

Barak began to chuckle as he, too, it seemed, studied his young attacker. "Oh, tuggin' at me coat tails, eh? A likely story, t' be sure, as much as any. By _thunder_, but ye is a small shrimp! Smaller n' any boy I ever seed; but a good fibber, as any man o' us c'n tell. How d' ye go by, boy?"

"I'm John," the little Ursid answered, but suddenly wondered at his honesty, recalling his cleverness when he introduced himself as William Hamilton among the sailors. How could he present his true name to these dirty savages of space who drew swords upon him, and not to the sailors who treated him so kindly?

"Well, John, ye c'n ne'er lie t' a man o' fortune, for he'll know when ye do, an' ye may lay to it. We're all a bunch o' liars"—and this brought about a round of laughter from the brutes who stood before him, which was so horridly enjoyed by all, John found himself bashfully smiling at them because of it—"so there ain't nary a hair o' trust left in us, which might be a good thin', too, when we run into all the pick pocketing natives we come 'cross on our voyages."

This last statement furrowed John's brow, and accumulated his fright once more. He pulled again against the three-fingered hand that held him, and, still restrained, insisted, "But I have not lied to you, sir! I did truly wish to ask you about a job!"

"Boy, our line o' trade ain't got no exportations. We don't loiter among planets' docks fer trade; we come on'y to stock up on our rum when we go dry, and when we dry up on ammunition, too!"

John's heart, finally—despite the preserving hope of such a child—sank deep within the black depths of his breast, for yet another obstacle rose up in front of his resolve for wealth and glory which he could not prevent or repair, and, for now, the persistence of John's hopes escaped him.

"You have no exportation goods?" John repeated oddly, as though he had been told he, himself, did not exist.

"Nothin' o' that sort, boy, but per'aps I can employ ye with some other sort o' job?"

This willingness to supply an occupation struck John as suspicious. "What sort of job would that be sir, if I may ask you?"

Barak said nothing, but glanced around at his companions with raised eyebrows. After he thusly engaged himself, Barak returned to John's eyes and suggested, with a presentation of his yellow teeth, "I'm impressed with the fact yer brave 'nough t' steal from a man o' fortune. On'y men o' fortune steal from men o' fortune, t' be sure"—and another peal of laughter threaded through the circle; however, John suddenly was doubtful that some of them could understand much English—"so yer almost like one o' us. Men o' fortune such as ourselves ain't exclusive one iota; why don't ye occupy yerself with doin' us little… _favors_?"

John's arm began to numb. He had not been aware that the restraint caused him pain, but suddenly his mind put it there, and he pulled hard against the hand and, to his unprovoked astonishment, his trapped limb fell free. He caught hold of it and massaged it, preoccupied suddenly with the odd meditation of how it had been his right arm that had been so inescapably trapped. Then, after this consideration, he rejoined Barak with, "And what such favors will I be doing for you, and how much should I be paid for them?"

Barak laughed. "Anything we ask fer, boy! Errands n' such; an' ye may lay to it. Men o' fortune come with little time to waste, and t' have an errand boy would be beneficial!"

"So I shall be your odd-job man? I should then readily decline your offer—I've been an odd-job man before, and I needn't tell you how much I despised the job."

Barak seemed to ignore this querulous whiff of temper, as John's more reserved part of him would have it so. Instead, Barak leaned in very confidentially—which John found flattering to his innermost loneliness—and continued with, "how 'bout we start at ten goldspecies a day, eh?"

_Ten_ goldspecies! All hope suddenly flourished once again inside John Silver, and his heart rose rapidly to his throat, sensing his father standing next to him in the sun already.

Needless to say, John accepted the job without further hesitation.


	10. Chapter 9

_**Chapter 9:**_ John Silver; Another Unfortunate Event in Correspondence with His Home

Jonas Silver died in the Marshalea Debtor's Prison two months afterward, on a cold day close to the end of the autumn. Doctor Isaiah Welling, upon seeing the emaciated body and the frailness of the figure, recognized that the cause was malnutrition and execrable conditions. Welling, who had always been an ardent consort as well as physician, was especially plaintive during his medical investigation, and quietly smoked his pipe for the duration of his visit to the jailhouse and confirmation of death. The circumstances which generated Jonas's fatality made an inner part of Welling start with horror and vehemence, although he had seen many patients die soon after their incarcerations into prisons—the period had not yet seen its conscience, and could ignore its urge to improve prison standards—and had, somewhat, resigned a part of himself to the fact Jonas was dead the day he was arrested. Nevertheless, Welling could not find the strength within his old heart to overcome his grief and remain in the Marshalea when the clergyman proceeded to pray for the dead, and fled the dark and lonely jailhouse.

Doctor Welling, greatly perturbed, rather coerced northward down the yellow cobblestone streets against the flow of people, blowing smoke from his pipe with rhythmic consecutiveness to each step, his hands clasped in wretched meditation.

The young son of the newly departed Jonas Silver, John, had not but two hours ago been quite accidentally discovered from the rivers of the streets of the boy's hiding place—where Welling had so meticulously searched for him in—to report with urgency and panic that he had seen the lifeless body of his father being carried out of the cell when he came to see him, and begged the doctor to tell him why. Welling did not know the answer then, but departed with haste to the prison, only to be greeted with expectance and presented with the unresponsive, wan, cadaverous body of his friend, and the father of the adolescent who remained at his home.

Welling had to pronounce Jonas dead. How could he have not?

Regaining his consciousness before the iron gate of his home, Welling removed his pipe from his lips and emptied it in his daughter-in-law's flowerbed and then pocketed it; a practice the old man had developed as a propensity after the woman had demanded he not smoke his pipe around his grandchild. Elizabeth never seemed to notice when she tended to them afterward, but the particular bed was never as high as all the others.

Jonas Silver was dead, was he not? Of course—Welling himself was a practiced physician; he had seen examples of corpses before. It was very plain Jonas had returned to Providence.

"There is a little boy here!" A gentle voice announced below the doctor as he entered his home. Welling, in a bit of a surprise, looked before him and beheld the very grandchild he was not allowed to smoke in the presence of, now at the age of fourteen. The light hair fell in loose curls about her face, and her clear eyes were big and curious, but very withheld and temperate. "He's such a _little_ boy… but so quiet, poppy! He just _sits_ there… I thought _all_ little boys were supposed to be loud and stupid."

The composed, youthful voice glided through the air, which, to Welling's wretched fancy, reminded him of how ghosts might talk if he could hear them. This thought, however, quickly made him shudder, and after he shed his black cloak he grinned at her and put his hands to her cheeks. They were warm.

"Not all little boys are loud and stupid, Abigail! Shush, dear one; or you'll hurt John's feelings."

Abigail's eyes flashed, and she pulled from Welling's touch to lean passed a nearby doorway to chance a new inspection of John, who was sitting on the floor of the parlor and staring out the window, which allowed a flood of sunshine to bleed through its barred panes.

"_John_ is his name?" Abigail repeated, gazing intently at the little Ursid as though he had transformed into a new identity now that she possessed such information. "I didn't think to ask him his name." She allowed a pause, as though in thought; her bright, intelligent eyes fixated on her new captivation, and her long, slender, yet still childlike physique pressed against the doorway. She then spoke again, looking over her shoulder at her grandfather, "He tells atrocious lies, poppy! He said the ships at the docks had wings and the sailors were their feathers, and they helped each other fly. Isn't that a peculiar lie, poppy?"

Doctor Welling told Abigail that it was a peculiar statement indeed, but not to patronize the poor boy further, and reminded her that John himself had seen the ships and sailors with his own eyes. Abigail turned back to her grandfather, her dress twirling about her long legs, her pale skin a white glow about her frail little form.

"You're right; I hadn't thought of that, but it still is a lie. Sailors aren't feathers, of course. Why has he come, poppy? He's awfully strange. It's ever so strange to have a little boy in the house—and a quiet one too! Why is he here, poppy? And why have you become so sad?"

Sad? Welling's mind repeated it, as if the word had lost its lucidity. He had just entered only a few short minutes; had he already insinuated a somber attitude? Welling straightened. "Stop calling John 'little'. He's only _two_ years younger than you, you silly girl! He's here because he needs a place to stay; he hasn't any parents to take care of him like you do. Now, keep quiet and go to your room until I call you to come downstairs again. I've got to talk to our new visitor, and unfortunately it needs to be kept private."

Abigail did not turn and obey in response, but stood very still, and, whether with a fantastic attentiveness, or prompted by a deeper intelligence, her eyes gleamed with a clever acuteness. "Mother doesn't like him here, poppy!" She informed the doctor with a gleeful whisper. "Mother says he's _dangerous_. That he's a street urchin, and a _sinner_! She says that she doesn't want him to look at me, nor I him, but I talked to him anyway. She said I was bad for talking to a boy, and slapped my hand. I liked talking to him, though, even if he tells peculiar lies and is a sinner; but you mustn't tell Mother I said that. Here she is!"

As if on cue, indeed Elizabeth did appear from the hallway ahead of the two, behind Abigail. She was a slender woman, as pale as her daughter, as silently graceful as her, with the same dulcet breath of voice. She shared Abigail's light, amber curls, but wore them in a tight bun on the back of her head. As she neared, she touched her daughter's shoulders, but Abigail turned on her heel and marched away down the corridor toward the little window that overlooked the house's garden.

Elizabeth folded her hands at her waist and addressed Welling with sobriety when her child was sufficiently out of sight. "Isaiah, we cannot house the poor. I willfully venture to boast that we are better off than some, but if we house this boy, we're inviting the whole congregation of poverty in with open arms."

Welling's body suddenly fatigued, and every muscle in his body tensed and then relaxed with a kind of exhaustion. He sighed. "We're _not_ inviting the poor, dearest. This boy has not caused you any trouble, has he?"

"Only that he has excited Abigail."

"Abigail does not seem agitated. Go tend to her, Elizabeth; she felt rather warm and I think perhaps she needs some fresh air. Take her to the garden and do not stir from that spot until I ask you to come back inside. I must talk with John privately."  
Elizabeth sighed with aversion toward Welling's negation of her censure, but her attention to her daughter's health weighed more paramount than arguing her points, so she dipped her fair head and followed the same course her daughter used to exit the hallway, the sound of her thick dress rustling with her step. Welling watched her with an uncertainty; his brow falling as he sighed over the discussion he was compelled to address with John.

Jonas Silver had died. Now, among his customary circumstances at home that Welling experienced daily, this sudden and abject affair seemed utterly false. Jonas Silver, however, was indeed engaged in an eternal sleep, where even his son—the one treasure Jonas cherished after his wife passed away—could not pull him back.

Stepping into the little parlor where John sat, Welling observed with affliction that the Ursid appeared to have dissolved away to nothing but his external shell; as though John, too, was now unattainable, and only a bleak, vague outline of him remained. The room pulsed with the familiar silence that had sprung up when John's mother died; a very red, pounding, throbbing silence. The external cortex of the child rested quite still in the middle of the room; a blank figure in the middle of the sunlight where the panes of the window were thrown in interlocking crosses on the floor.

Welling furthered his approach with another step, now consumed with an empty, anxious grief.

Just as this overcame Welling, however, John snapped awake again and caught Welling's eyes in his own. They did truly burn with the fire of his youth, and he moved and breathed with the craft the departed did not possess. Welling remained still, studying the unsearchable abyss of John's blue eyes, until the child rose to his feet with a panicked furor, and Welling quickly crossed to John and kneeled down beneath his eye level.

"What's happened to my father?" John whispered, hurriedly. "He's all right, isn't he?"

Welling took hold of both John's upper arms. "John," he addressed, very languidly, "I'm going to tell you what's happened, but I need you to be calm."

"_What_, Doctor Welling?" John's voice strengthened. "What's happened?"

"John, calm down—"

"Doctor, _please_! Tell me what happened!"

"_John_, listen to me," Welling demanded with difficulty. "I need you to be calm, now. Can you be calm for me?"

The room seemed to wilt with the boy's sudden and unforeseen silence, as though the thoughts in John's head influenced the room's contortions.

"Why," John spoke again, lengthily, and after a profound withdrawal inside himself, in an incredible whisper, "why should I be calm?"

Welling could no longer suppress the news. Jonas Silver had died—the father and only guardian of this boy—at his own decree! At his own confirmation it had been medically averred! Such was the ruin of the child who now stood before him in his own grasp—the very grasp that had pulled him forth to this now tormenting world, changed only by the wear of time! Welling had witnessed John's birth, his mother's death—in the identical hour, nonetheless—the enduring bond formed between the two surviving of the family, and then Jonas's arrest, John's disappearance, Jonas's frailty, and now, seeing John await the news that Jonas had starved to death in his prison, Welling—rather than have this mournful wrong to confess—would have gladly descended to Hell at that exact moment.

Doctor Welling heard himself say it. He confessed it grimly, softly, sternly, solemnly. The words burned an inscription inside his mind. Even so, as the tremendous weight of the news was exposed, Welling kept an unbreaking fixation ensnared on the boy's eyes.

John looked at him for an instant, with all that violence of passionate fury and shock, which—intermixed in more shapes than one with his younger, softer qualities—was, in fact, the portion of which Welling, and even Jonas, had lost hold of that had been stolen by the impurities of a lonely civilization. Never was there a crueler and blacker face than what Welling encountered now. For the brief lapse of time it shadowed John's face, it was a dark alteration. But the child's character had been so depleted by anguish already, his body could not endure more than the initial shock. Without the breath of a sound, John collapsed in Doctor Welling's arms.


	11. Chapter 10

_**Chapter 10**_: John Silver; Reconstructions of Life

For weeks ensuing, John rolled and turned and spun dizzily around in opaque darkness; searching and picking and tripping his way through chasms of fever and fissures of ecstasy. He twisted and spiraled and curled in this abyss, fluttering from fiery, blazing upheavals to frigid, bitter deluges; chasing the vague shimmers of what seemed to be familiar up and down the blackness of his infirmity. Plumes of smoke cracked along the edges of the fathoms of shadows when the conflagrations inside him burned, where flashes of images seemed to spark in front of him; some perhaps witnessed doubtfully, with an unintelligible florid light of their own. He could sometimes envisage a ship in the docks with the sails furled; another time he would see his home, or the face of his father, or he would be haunted by eyes of glistening stars, and he would melt between the folds of the flaming bedclothes.

Then came the gelid cut of ice that ran up his legs, and he would shake with an intensity amongst blue tempests of evil blizzards that coiled in his darkness. In this state, constricted by his stiffness, but writhing with tremors of cold, John's vision would vaguely return to focus, and the flowers of a purple pattern would blossom on the windows' drapes, the walls of the room would settle in around him, and Welling's waxen face would appear above him from his right, talking, babbling, mouthing, tracing his eyes, draping frozen handkerchiefs on his frozen forehead, speaking to him. Whispering. Fading.

And then John would sleep.

"Poppy says you've been ill," informed a voice silvery and harmonic that drifted around John's head in the darkness.

John's eyes opened slowly to an effaced blur of soft reds, violets, and amber locked within a square that lay on its side. His eyes closed as before, and again the darkness; he opened his eyes, and viewed now a portrait of a woman in warm colors hanging on a wall. The figure had a deep, crisp, almost apathetic stare that watched the room without murmur or pleasure; a frown creasing the folded skin of her once quite fair face. John shut his eyes once more, finding the old woman's stare too unresponsive to behold. He sighed, feeling the warmth of layers of heavy bedclothes floating about his legs and arms.

"Aren't you awake?" inquired the same voice from behind him.

John's eyes were open again. "No," he responded, with a frown at the portrait he once more observed, "perhaps I am not."

"Nonsense," the voice persisted. The Ursid suddenly felt weight applied to the bed behind him with a screech of the mattress springs. "How can you not be awake and still be talking to me? You're _not_ dreaming; I know I'm not a dream."

John exhaled rigidly, and propped himself up on his elbows to twist around and see who was speaking. Upon his rotation, John's eyes leapt on a girl not two years older than he, who sat erectly on the mattress in a long, slender, pale dress. The white gleam from her garment intertwined with the alert, pale face of the body it covered, which was framed with golden-amber curls that fell quietly about her shoulders. The windows had been flung open, and the girl seemed to have flooded in with the sunlight.

"Who are you?" John asked her without emotion, but on an odd note.

The girl giggled, and pulled her knees onto the bed before notifying him that they had met before. "I'm Abigail. I'm a little surprised you can't remember me. I spoke with you in the parlor a week ago before you got so terribly sick."

John had recognized her as the same girl before she had answered his question, and even soon after he had asked her it. He told her he could now recall who she was, and repeated her name, but with calculated indifference.

A contented pause traveled around the room under the watch of the old woman in the portrait to John's left, until presently Abigail wet her rich, florid lips. The melody of her voice poured out again, but softer, delicately; as if her voice was now caressing a kitten in her lap. "I don't know what _I_'d think if my father died. I think I might just weep and weep… but boys don't cry, do they? So I don't know what _I_'d think if my father died and I was a boy."

John's throat burned away inside him, and he felt his innards crumble in a tight twist of quick and brutal anguish in succession. Then, as if ignited by it, a fiendish animosity flared with great intensity at the girl, and as a surge of bitter energy—that was more likely not directly connected with the girl's comment, but instigated by the true event she referenced—he struck her once with wild impact with a closed hand.

As quickly as this surge of energy had occurred did it expire; as though it had exhausted the only energy his entire body possessed, and he was suddenly filled with weakness and remorse.

With a flashing gleam of her golden curls and white face, Abigail had crumpled to her right in response to her attack, and as John watched her, her face contorted in a ghastly manner, and John was abruptly seized with the fear of her crying. To John's surprise, however, she did not commence to weeping, but a deathly convulsion of coughing caught her forthwith that seemed to violently spasm through her frail physique. At length she recovered with difficulty, but when she regained her breath, she simply gazed at him with an almost elated incredulity.

"I'm… I'm sorry." John faltered, inspecting her with his eyes, in slight confusion.

Abigail shook her head, with the same brightness of eyes and creamy skin—although fairly flushed now—as if she had not undergone any episode at all. "I'm not going to talk about that anymore. Look," and here she pointed with a long, delicate finger in the direction of the far wall, "she's my grandmother."

John, in accordance nearly mechanical—with a cautiousness as though he balanced an egg on his nose, now, for he worried nonsensically that if he acted in any other movement but fluidly, the girl beside him would choke again with her cough— and followed her indication toward the portrait of the woman who guarded the room with such abandoned interest. As John held his gaze on the fractured features and wan expression, Abigail vivaciously lifted herself from her position to traverse the surface of the bed, her dress lifted in bunches in her hands at her knees, and then she lightly dropped down to stand beside the picture. "Everyone says I look just like her—" she reached her destination and placed herself with care next to the frame—"do you think so?"

Abigail's eyes shone with a certain clever brilliance John could not match in the eyes of the portrait. Abigail's hair streamed in sunlit swirling curls down her milky cheeks and small shoulders, and these contrasted the hard visage and austere coiffure of the woman in the portrait. Abigail smiled—although, try as she might not to in order to better match the expression of her relative—and John could not unearth a fragment of resemblance.

The Ursid was not allowed to present his opinion, however, because the girl moved again to the bed beside him and continued like a bird, "She was a horrible woman, and I never liked anyone saying that I looked like her; but she _did_ have some of the most beautiful stories about different worlds."

John's mind was suddenly concentrating singularly upon Abigail; either her light ease of presence intoxicated him, or his broken spirit generated a consoling distraction from her speech that redirected his thoughts away from the loss of his father. Either way, instead of suffering a severe sorrow after regaining himself from his illness, John swelled with a feeling of content by listening to Abigail conversing.

"She saw other planets?" John inquired, hoping to stimulate a more elaborated statement than the first.

Abigail shrugged at John, exchanged a glance with him that felt as though she trusted him with her grandmother's information, and she sat next to him on the bed facing the portrait. "She traveled everywhere. My grandfather was a merchant or tradesman or something like that so she went everywhere with him. Of course, that was before Mother was born—after she had my mother, they came here because she didn't want Mother to grow up 'an Etherium girl.' Then she got Tuberculosis and my grandfather didn't want to take her everywhere with him because she was sick—and the climate here is good for people with Tuberculosis, since it's so humid—so he would leave to do what merchants do and she would stay with Mother."

"Mother grew up and got married to Daddy, and later on Grandpa died, so she lived with us. We all lived with poppy at that point, like we do now, and Mother thought that it would be good for her to live with a doctor, but she died when I was eight. When I turned nine, they realized I'd gotten Tuberculosis because I suddenly started coughing and couldn't stop. Everyone thought I was going to die—even poppy—but I didn't."

She threw a glance at John that painted her face with a look like she took pride in her haphazard survival, which suddenly instilled John with a thirst for survival on his own part. Abigail then rose tentatively from the bed and touched the portrait, but the action did not seem to be initiated from a suddenly amplified devotion to the woman it depicted, but almost to be like a lassitude entreaty for the woman to somehow find the ability to escape. John watched Abigail's tight, small back and shoulders.

"But listen to how much I talk!" Abigail rejoined with vigor. "I didn't come in here to tell you about my grandmother. I have a question for you."

John raised his eyebrows in preparation for the question, finding a perplexing shiver of excitement thrill up through his arms at the idea of her needing his advice or knowledge. Abigail found herself replaced on the bed beside John, and, as he gained her eyes, he realized they gleamed with a charm of anticipation and vivacity. Again, she wet her fiery lips, and asked in the deepest of whispers, "What's it like?"

John was stupefied. "What's _what_ like?" He asked her loudly.

Abigail shushed him. "_Outside_!" she insisted after a quick glance in the portrait's direction— as if her grandmother was interposingly listening to their confidential discussion— her voice still low. "What's it like to be outside?"

Again, John was only stupefied, but now fairly quizzical. He lowered his voice and replied, "What do you mean? You've never been _outside_ before? That's impossible."

"_No_, no. Well, I _have_ been outside, but only in the gardens. I've never been in the streets or at the docks… Mother is too worried it will worsen my cough, so she keeps me indoors. But I've _always_ wanted to see the town—_please_ tell me about it, John! And don't you dare lie to me."

John felt as though sitting upon the end of a pin. Be the eyes of a person who had never seen the docks? Be the nose of the person who never smelt the marketplace? Be the searching fingers of the person who had never felt crates in their grip? Be the thoughts of the person who never struggled to survive between the dirty, stoned streets? John considered it an impossible concept.

He did, nevertheless, venture to answer her, for he desired vastly to maintain her application to him. "It's... nice."

This response seemed ill conceived in John's head after he heard it articulated, but Abigail resituated herself on the bed with rapture. "Is it?" She pursued, her brilliant eyes radiating an airy green in the direction of his troubling position. This pursuit, however, did abet John to continue in this manner, despite its seemingly inadequacy.

"Yes," John confirmed with little else to continue with, "it's nice. Very nice."

A new pause of silence journeyed around the little room under the concession of the ever-present eyes of the passive portrait, although the contented feeling of the former excursion diminished perceptively. John needed a new adjective, for Abigail still sustained her application to him as he had wished, but he now did not know how to retain it. He began measuring why he enjoyed the environment of the outside.

"At least, it's nice when it's not _raining_…" John recovered after a moment, with more resilience, "…or really cold. It isn't great when it's hot, either, but it's not nearly as bad as it is when it's cold. You also have to consider how many other people there are walking in the streets with you—it can get pretty crowded"—but here, John remembered how successful he was at thievery when the crowds of people grew thick, so, to allow a converse, he added, "unless, you know… you like people. Then the crowds aren't a big deal."

"I like people," Abigail remarked brightly.

John smiled—a genuine one; one that had not slipped along his lips for a notable time—and agreed he liked people as well. It was only then that he remembered with mortification the gray faces of crowds who would pass him during his life in the cracks of the stones on the streets, and his father's face broken in half by a stiff iron bar of his cell, and that he had now finally passed out of reach, and out of reach of John's determination to set him free. John had failed his father—he had not paid his debts fast enough. John had not made the family wealthy, and he had not bought them a house made of marble on another planet. John's father was dead, and John had allowed him to die in miserable poverty.

John felt himself sink back down to the pillow, in an anguishing cloud of guilt. The same ignoble thought burst up through his mind again, and his limbs assumed a weight unbearable to suffer. His chest tightened with grief. He shut his eyes together with such force that his eyelids screamed with pain. John suddenly heard a voice in his head that prayed for his own death as well.

It did not, of course, come, however; only a soft touch of sunlight lined his brow, his face. His eyes, prompted by their own liberty, opened again to a gentle glare of white, and for an instant he felt he was lying in a field looking at the golden sphere of the maternal sun; but it was only the white, delicate skin of Abigail's face which gleamed concernedly down at him, and whose fingers searched him for evidence of injury.

"John?" She demanded quietly, "_John_? Are you okay? Do you want for me to get poppy?"

John considered it in a milky haze. It was all John's shocked mind could do to simply connect the fact blearily that Abigail referred to the man John knew as Doctor Welling as "poppy." John shut his eyes again, with a bitter loneliness curling up his ribs. "No, don't get him," he replied stiffly, very quietly. "I want to sleep again. Leave me alone."

Abigail left and, with her dispersal, she closed the heavy curtains of the windows, and the sunlight was doused, leaving John in darkness once more.

John slept profoundly. Doctor Welling woke him once to measure how much he had recovered from his illness, but John was unresponsive, and finally Doctor Welling drifted from the silent room. After Abigail and her grandfather's appearances, it seemed as though no one came into his room for a long time, and throughout this stretch of solitude, John either slept with a deathlike magnitude, or revisited his childhood at his home, the streets in which he played, or in the Naval Pay Office where his father worked; where he had first resolved to bring wealth to the family. At these returns inside his memory, John would apologize endlessly into the depths of his pillow, but the guilt that lay heavily upon him could not be alleviated.

An unrecorded amount of days were passed like this in John's room, which was only constituted by sleep and dreams of the described natures. After their passing, however, John slowly drifted awake and stared at the stolid portrait of the old woman who gazed impassively over the bed where he lay. He then spent days awake in bed, corresponding with his visitors, smiling, laughing; and Doctor Welling considered this to be John's full recovery from illness.

John was boarded in the birth-and-death room, a chamber of the Welling family house that stood quietly at the back of the structure, keeping company the equally silent and still window that peered out over the gardens which were the extent of Abigail's protected world. The house was superlative; something extensively different in comparison to what John had grown up in during his childhood. The house was dark and colossal, but John—when he experienced the good feeling of being able to leave the birth-and-death room—fancied that it was of unutterable grandeur, and even though it was not a magnificent home, it was a tremendous change of living conditions for the boy.

One change John found he enjoyed immensely was the great portions of food he was given by Abigail's mother—who addressed him little, but observed him steadily, which reminded him of the portrait who watched him in his room—and he first learned how much he enjoyed food as a whole. He had never eaten such extravagant meals like the ones he encountered at the Welling household, and entertained dancing tastes and rich smells with every new morsel he tried at the table. Abigail was derisively captivated by John's pleasure in provisions, and once asked him after dinner, "How can you eat so much?"

"You have to eat to live, Abigail," he answered with a grin for her, "and there's no harm in _living_."

"You _must_ be a fool," Abigail responded, her eyes illustrious with her trenchant humor, but her words spilled out with nothing behind them that sounded cheerful.

For a while, Abigail dismissed John with a gleam of her august eyes in the first few weeks following their meeting in the birth-and-death room, but then she was again interested, and accompanied him wherever he was in the house, and they would interview each other perpetually. John felt a slight connection with her; a close bond on a very basic level of loneliness. John engaged in tender curiosity of her; he could sense behind her shimmering blue eyes the same feeling of isolation and confinement that he himself had felt while living alone, and how he felt even now. He sometimes conjectured to himself intermittently of how he might somehow free her of her solitude, but he never spoke of it or schemed out the process he would use. He simply dreamed now; he was finished promising.

Periodically, John would be attacked by episodes of severe, painful grief that had first appeared when Abigail addressed him in the birth-and-death room, which usually haunted him at night. These seizures were arduous, but John would recover quickly, and his life would be merry again during the day.

Weeks numbered to finally one month, and Abigail identified the anniversary of his arrival to the home with legerity one afternoon in the gardens. _So_, a small echo of John's mind whispered, _it has been one month since Father died_.

"What shall we do to celebrate it?" Abigail asked him, picking a flower from the grass and sliding it through her fingers.

John meditated on the irony of the question; Abigail considered this date to be one to celebrate, for she only focused on what either affected her directly or on which facts she preferred. John looked away and didn't reply—he only watched a man in a long red coat lumber passed the iron gates of the house—so Abigail continued with lacking initiative in her face. "We could have Mother bake a cake; she likes to bake cakes I think. And we could have a lunch for you with some of your favorite foods, and poppy might get you a present—wouldn't that be fun?—a _present_."

"I don't want any gifts, though," John interrupted simply. "Anything I get in my life I want to get myself—I don't want people giving me things."

Abigail laughed a very hollow laugh. "_You_ wouldn't be able to get anything. You don't know how to. You'd go hungry in the first hour! And then you'll come crawling back here, begging for one of Mother's delicious cakes she just loves to bake!"

John only smiled. "No, I won't. I'm not going to stay here long enough to be able to come back here. I'm going to leave soon, Abigail, and I'll become as rich as any man ever has."

There was a strange charge of betrayal that sparked suddenly in the gardens which John became aware of, but his awareness was overcome with a new concern; Abigail's mother emerged from the interior of the house, fanning the two children back toward the door. "Abigail, get out of the grass, you'll be stained! John; Doctor Welling would like to see you in the parlor—there's a man in there with him who claims he knows you."

John hurried to the parlor; Abigail was not allowed to follow him to the room but shooed upstairs to her own chambers. Upon entering, John found no less of a person than Barak himself; the man whose great red coat John tried to pickpocket, and his last employer at the docks, sitting placidly in one of the chairs across from Doctor Welling.


	12. Chapter 11

_**Chapter 11:**_ John Silver; the Product of His Dealings with Pirates

"John," Doctor Welling addressed with lethargy, rising to a stand from his seat when he noticed John had appeared at the doorway, "Come sit down with us."

The child Ursid remained standing dubiously scowling in the threshold, watching the Doctor in front of the small faded couch that slumped next to the chair Barak sat in, which seemed to struggle against the weight of the great man, but nevertheless seemed to beam for the same presence. Barak was adorned with his fabulous coat—as he was always when John would see him during his errands for him before his father's death—with the thick golden buttons lining the front that fell down to his knees; and a very fine laced hat that was set on the back of his bald head.

Welling reassumed his position on the couch. "I would suggest," he coaxed John again, lifting his head, "you might want to sit down. Do you know this man?"

John again did not comply with Welling's bidding, but he did part his lips to answer, eyeing Barak in his tremendous chair, "Yes, sir. I know the man. He was my employer at the docks before my arrival here."

Barak's ample face was suddenly red with congeniality, and was smartly highlighted by his yellow grin of teeth that beamed toward John in a most kindly manner. "And who's missed 'is lil' helper tragically, to be sure!" He declared with hyperbolic mirth to Welling, gesturing with a wave of one arm as if to present the measurement of his sorrow at John's absence. "This 'un's a right good young man o' fortune, and you may lay to it! I know a good young space-man when I sees 'im, I do, sir. Ask any man about 'ere—I dare ye—an' 'eel tell ye I've an eye for fine young space-men, an' I seen it in th' lad with one wink o' my blessed deadlights!"

Welling, in an almost piqued manner, sat up straight at Barak's comment, and bent forward as though he intended to lean down over the spacer. "As much of a _man of fortune_ as John might be," Welling responded with a thin tone, "if you've anything else to say, I think you had better say it, else you shall be asked to continue on with your own affairs."

"Right ye is, sir, o' course; o' course—ye is obv'ously a busy man who expects concise business transactions! I'm a concise man, meself, so help me," Barak chuckled amiably, constantly speaking to Welling; never once drifting his sight to John standing in the threshold. John shifted his weight, surprised at himself that he did not fear Barak's sudden emergence, nor did he even wonder at it. He listened attentively, his eyes lowered watchfully in Barak's direction, and he allowed himself to lean carefully against the wall.

"Oh, you've come on _business_, have you?" Welling rejoined with raised eyebrows, seeming to lean even closer in on Barak, "and what business would _that_ be?"

Barak erected himself with complete dignity and, after throwing forth both hands and straightening the cuffs of his great coat, he answered decorously, "I've come t' collect whot I feel's mine."

John guessed the truth with an explosion in his ear before Welling inquired upon what it was that Barak considered was his to collect.

"That precious lil' boy ye have standin' there is _my_ errand boy, sir, by thunder, and my ship sails at three bells tomorrow," Barak stated. He, in turn, leaned forward now as if to challenge Welling with a determined look of concern rippling on the brow of his great forehead, "Am I t' leave my precious lil' errand boy 'ere on this mis'rable planet, t' let 'im starve and suffer without my goldspecies he needs t' eat with, and t' buy 'is clothes with? No, says ye—I trow not! I'm a man o' dooty, who believes in lettin' boys live t' their manhood, and I'll be th' son o' va Flatulan t' leave 'im without any wages! Would ye not do th' same in my place, sir?"

With his wrists upon his knees and his fingertips touching, Welling stared stoically at the brown pirate as he declared these last words. John folded his arms uneasily in the doorframe, and threw his eyes from one man to the other, having for the first time heard Barak speak of the value his employment represented to him, and slightly doubted the integrity of the words, and also of the motives the man presented. He was, nevertheless, impressed with the theory of joining Barak into space as an errand boy and he bit down on his bottom lip, looking at Doctor Welling in order to see his reaction.

John saw Doctor Welling glance at him through the corners of his spectacles, and as he did so, his head moved enough to make the lenses jump with a white light, and then back to the frame around his gentle green eyes. John initially understood this glance to signify his irritation that the boy had still failed to sit, but it occurred to him that the Doctor's irritation was not effectuated by his own offense. John shifted his weight again and placed his shoulder blade against the frame he leaned against, watching the Doctor as he made his response, and he guessed apathetically that Welling was not as impressed with John embarking onto a ship with a man he barely knew.

"John will not perish, as you have insinuated, upon your dispersal," Welling reproved slowly. "I can manifest the fact, if you would agree to cooperate with me…"

Barak interrupted, lifting a rotund finger. "I trow _not_, by thunder," he continued industriously, as though his audience had concurred his assertion. "Th' boy made an agreemint with me that he should serve me for wages! Have I no right t' feel I've a cert'in allowance t' take 'im with me, such as the like? Where'll he go if he don't go with me?"

"He shall remain here, in the company of good health," answered Welling readily. Barak seemed to not have heard him, for he continued adamantly.

"He'll have no place to go, sir, and ye may lay to it! And I'll be th' son of a Flatulan t' leave a poor boy 'ere without no home."

Welling sat back again, moving his hand up and down his white face. John's head fell forward slightly as he took this opportunity to meticulously observe Barak in his chair, who was forcing himself his success despite whether or not the opposing side presented better arguments. Barak's skin was very coarse and sun burnt many times over, and his face was wrinkled not from age, but from cruel environments and the black-hearted Etherium. His eyes were small and sank well into his commanding face, and they both seemed to dance with an alarming magnetism, which was both of interest and of mysterious concern. His coat enveloped him, as large a man as he was, but John was vigilant enough to notice the butt of a fine silver-mounted pistol in the inner breast pocket of it, and he conjectured that there was an equally fine silver sword that was strapped about Barak's broad waist.

This lead John's imagination to wonder at the estimation of the number of men whose backs had been penetrated by its blade, or by the pistol's bullets. John then found himself amused by the idea that Barak would not kill an enemy face to face, but attacked at the back to ensure himself victory. With a morbid fancy, John pursued the idea as he envisioned an environment of any kind in which the act was done; a hundred times over Barak slashed at his enemy with his sword in a jungle, or a cave, or suspended freely in the Etherium—the most dangerous, John assumed—and enjoyed the eventful and changing prospects.

Welling's face surfaced from the palm of his hand that had been massaging it and he leaned forward again toward Barak, who increased his own incline toward the doctor in return, and for a while the two sat facing one another in such a manner, as though the final war was begun.

"Are you convinced to take John with you?" Welling inquired, suddenly, with such a quick movement of his mouth John scarcely saw him ask it.

"Like iron, t' be sure."

"And nothing, short of an order from the Queen, will stand in your way?"

"Let _even_ th' Queen try, by thunder!"

Welling sat back at last, consenting. "Then I shall say this—and only this—and you will not speak to me nor I to you ever again. I am in as much legal possession of your _chattel_ as you yourself are, my good sir, and so the two of us arguing about where he goes or where he should stay is neither of our final responsibilities. John Silver, there, in the doorframe is a boy of valor and character, who is just as capable of making his own decisions as you or I am. Now, sir, if you are determined to take John with you on your impending voyage, you must request permission from he whom you plan to take. You shall not succeed with me; my conviction for him to remain here is as strong as yours to take him, but if you ask it of him, and he agrees to leave with you on your ship as your servant, then I can do nothing more than to help him prepare, and swallow my pill."

A silence resounded inside John's ears as the doctor finished. John's brow knitted with uncertainty as Barak grandly nodded once in Welling's direction and he turned in his chair to face John with both his sunken eyes. John's heart fluttered as Barak sat back in half astonishment, muttering a begrudged, "like enough…" and then asked him if he wanted to come with him on his voyage, and continue being his errand boy and getting lots of money for it.

John remembered what he had stated to Abigail in the gardens. He had told her that he would leave and become as rich as any man ever had. He wondered suddenly if he had believed himself when he said it, or if he said it just to assuage the guilt he still carried for his father. He considered the fact that he did not need to leave to continue to earn money; that employment would always be at the docks when he needed it, and that he could live with Doctor Welling until he owned enough money and a satisfactory job. He also considered, however, that employment anywhere in his town was terribly low-paying, and that his chances of becoming rich were minor. John then suddenly lighted upon the thought that, even if he had failed at making his father happy, Jonas's second wish would be for John to be happy, and the decision was made.

"Bless me, but ye is a fine young gentleman o' fortune!" Barak responded expansively when John answered him affirmatively. "He know with whom t' swing, he do—Davy Jones's Locker is a better place t' sink to, it is, than sinkin' into the peasantry of humankind!"

Doctor Welling had been watching John with an expression of lost fortitude, but when John agreed to go to the Etherium with the pirate, Welling's brow fell, his eyes closed, and the color left his cheeks, leaving him waxen and looking like a very old man. He did, however, recover his color quickly, and he rose to stand before the couch, pulling his pipe out and lighting it as John and Barak inadvertently looked on. After shaking the match out and sighing forth a first inhalation of smoke, he turned slightly and looked at John through the lenses of his glasses.

"If I may make a final entreaty," Welling said to Barak, "I'd like for John to spend the night here so he can get ready for the voyage tomorrow. It would also behoove you, my good sir, to give your word to me and your new travel partner that you will allow John to break your contract whenever he wishes, and when he might do so, you should also promise me and the boy that you will release him safely in an inhabited civilization of Her Majesty's planets with proper necessities. Have I your word?"

"Ye have me word on me honor as a gentleman o' fortune!" affirmed the buccaneer boisterously, with a broad wave of his hand and a reassuring smile.

"Very good," resumed the doctor, very quietly, and, after pulling a second inhalation from his pipe, he proceeded from the couch and passed John, to whom he nodded and said, "All right, John. You may go to your room now if you'd like."

Welling's exit left John and Barak in the room alone.

Barak was reverent. "A fine bunch o' people who be livin' here, to be sure!" he thundered to himself as he rose from his own seat, "a fine bunch o' people indeed…. And a fine young gentleman with whom I sail along side of tomorrow!" Barak approached John and slammed a hand on his shoulder, and, pointing a finger at him, the pirate observed in a low voice, "ye'll make one pretty spacer, mark me words, boy. A right pretty spacer! Stories'll be told of ye even after yer long dead, and I'd bet my ol' deadlights upon it!"

John raised his eyebrows, and grinned at this. "You think so?"

Barak shook his head with benevolent excitement, as if the question was one of great stupidity. "Aye, that ye will, boy! That ye will! We should get along well, you and me, John, 'cause yer as smart as paint—I seed it when I first saw ye. Just remember t' behave yerself, an' stay outta' trouble, and you'll be a right _pretty_ spacer, or, Lord help me, I'll be a rum-puncheon!"

Doctor Welling helped John collect his accoutrements in silence, however offering articles of necessity from his own belongings until he was satisfied with John's assortment of assets.

John's furnishings were modest; they were collected in a little bundle of cloth, which was then to be placed on the end of a thin staff in order to ease its mobility. They consisted of clothes—ones which Welling was very unhappy with, as most of them were his and were too big—handkerchiefs, money pieces Welling insisted upon as an alternative if Barak did not fulfill his promises to let John leave him whenever he desired; two books, one of fiction and the other of sea travel, which told of poisons and elixirs that could be encountered on a ship; a Bible, and a handful of candy—which Welling chuckled at as he presented them to John, remembering the candy he would bring to him when he was younger.

When this was done, Doctor Welling smoothed the material on his thighs as he found a comfortable seat on the bed next to John's valise, with a very long, serious upper lip. After a pause, he motioned kindly for John to accompany him there, to which John obeyed, and when he did so, Welling removed his glasses and began to speak to him gravely.

He first put John on his guard for certain apostasies; ones John had no temptation in committing beforehand, and then urged upon the dangers the Etherium represented, and then begged John to act with caution upon its waves. That done, Welling replaced his glasses on the end of his nose as he regarded John in a quiet and somber manner, and said, "Your father would be proud of you. He wanted very much to see you set out upon your own in the world. He was very positive you would succeed."

John swallowed. His eyes traced the stitch work in the bedclothes on which they sat, musing over how his father would have sent him on his way when he was old enough; how he would not have treated him as a son or a child but as a man who had a place in the severity of life. His hand would rest on his shoulder as he spoke his final words of advice, and he would tell him he believed in him and his future correspondences, and jokingly tell him to remember his old father during holidays as they bid farewell.

"As you will," Welling was saying, "my conscience firmly compels me to improve this parting, and so I would like you to tell me of anything you can think of that you might require, which you haven't already. Is there anything else that you might need, John?"

John considered asking him if he might tell him to remember him during holidays, but instead he simply shook his head, his eyes still fixated on the bedclothes.

"Very well," the doctor sighed, rising from the bed as if to depart, feeling his work was done. John rose to follow him, without thinking, and he followed Welling to the threshold of the birth-and-death room door. Welling glanced at him and smiled, stopped, and, after looking at him, slowly gathered John's shoulders in his arms and embraced him very hard, with his palm clasped on the back of John's head. John was then brought out in front of him at arms' length, and remained there as he dispersed out the door and into the hall.


	13. Chapter 12

_**Chapter 12:**_ John Silver; "_Flying the Fine Space Air_"

Smoke floated nervously from the belly of Doctor Welling's pipe the day following Barak's discourse with him, as he and John waited for the pirate early in the morning to bring John to the docks. While the house was dim and gray in the early hours of the new day, John could feel a tension of suspense flicker periodically from the part of the house where Welling would inhabit with restless disquietude; he would leaf about the old house smoking his pipe, replacing objects on mantles, flipping through pages in books, and then he would accost Elizabeth—who was attending to her own independent operations—when they're paths intersected to petition the time.

There is no doubt John's anxiety surpassed Welling's; however, John concealed it determinedly. A timorous silence reigned relentlessly all about the house—one which John had no inclination to overturn—thus, he contained his apprehensiveness by watching Welling weave in and out of rooms, followed irresolutely by a thin string of black smoke from his pipe.

The previous evening it had been delivered by two more abominable pirates—who claimed to be a part of Barak's crew—that Barak would arrive early in the morning to take John to the ship, where he would stay until the afternoon, and then they would launch at the repeated term of "three bells", which was revealed upon Welling's command to mean half-passed one.

Barak made no approach to the house upon the appointed time or the hour after, but arrived sourly the hour following, like a whirlwind, grumbling indignant imprecations to all who greeted him at the door about how such a man of his great character should not be burdened with the responsibility of remembering to deliver a child to where he might need him. John took little offense to this, though, for after these remarks, Barak redeemed himself once more by giving John a warm salutation and a salute which he claimed was reserved for only gentlemen of fortune.

Welling's former disquietude seemed to be amplified at Barak's eventual advent. Twice he accused the brown spacer of intoxication, to which Barak denied with, "I haven't had a noggin o' rum this blessed day! Ye'll know when ye see me if I've took more rum for my head t' carry, for I'm a man who's lived rough and who raises Cain when he's drunk, and so I'd swing afore th' sun sets, I would! Have I had a dram this fine day, sir? No, not I!"

It seemed with the second allegation of this contravene, Barak's whirlwind blew forth out of the Welling home, for John was swept through the door and into the golden streets that were bathed in the sun of the afternoon. When the light bloomed in John's eyes and he felt Barak's hand on his back, keeping him in a rapid pace, John was swift to look back, and the house looked very austere and remote under the auric rays of the afternoon. He did not feel remorse in leaving it, nor did he regret leaving Abigail confined in her gardens; but John's heart leapt for an instant at the sight of Welling's figure standing on the porch of his house, smoking his pipe.

Rounding the corner into the Western hemisphere of the ports, very excited, Barak hastened toward the quays with his hand on John's back, and creating himself to be a most arresting companion as they plunged down the dock planks. In intervals, Barak would turn with vigor and indicate the differences in the ships that the two passed—their tonnage, rig, and nationality; and how each were being prepared for sail, or being repaired, or engaging in trade. Once, they passed a Flatulan ship, and Barak stopped John with a plangent clamor and a terrible oath.

"Watch it, John! Flatulans are nothin' t' walk in th' presence of!" And with this, he spat into the earth in the direction of the galleon, whereupon he took to full flight, slapping John on the back to follow him.

Presently Barak gave John the permission to decelerate, and the two continued in their former manner, Barak occasionally erupting with laughter in regard to his conduct toward the Flatulan spacecraft. After one such eruption, he cried with a corrupt mirth, "The great gasbags! Shiver me timbers, but they are feebleminded—none o' v'em smart, says you, John; not a _pair_ o' v'em smart! But, _thunder_! T'were a magnificent lay!" He chuckled once more, but then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he had realized something.

"But blow me!" Barak exclaimed, "_ye_ had not th' chance t' spatter at th' swabs!"

John, after his initial perplexity, was obliged to laugh aloud at this, for he had never been given the permission to expectorate at a creature he deplored, and he did not even know if he deplored the Flatulan species. John did, however, draw himself up and lift his chin in the sunlight, and replied, emulating Barak's accent, "I did not even _think_ to, sir! They're too lowly for even me own _spatter_!"

To this, Barak was seized by a laughter so great he nearly choked, and, finding a place to sit with great difficulty, he chortled until tears slid down his face. "Why," he faltered, after his peal, "what a precious lil' chap ye is, boy! But come, now, this won't do; ye've _got_ t' have a chance t'—" but here Barak stopped, and his jaw dropped once more. He then curled his lips in a belligerent smile, and informed John that, instead of spattering, he should pick pocket one of the Flatulan spacers, for he could tell it was John's aptitude.

John pulled a money purse from a passing Flatulan's satchel, and Barak claimed his very soul fainted with joy. "But now, boy," he straightened, adjusting the cuffs of his great coat, "stand by to go about; dooty is dooty, messmate, and I'll stake me davy we'll ne'er reach th' blessed ship at this wind!"

So once again Barak and John launched into their former pace down the docks at a stride that made John's ears ring with ebullience. They passed the marketplace where John had smelled fruits and meat so many times before; they passed the fisherman's stand where John had purchased the ancient fish for Mrs. Thatcher, and the crowded streets he had visited in one interval of his life, worked in another interval, and slept, starved, and stole in a most recently passed interval, and John considered hopefully that he was finally and truly leaving it.

The ship lay abstracted from the other crafts in a quiet nebula that clung to the edge of the Western Hemisphere. The rigging swung overhead, and grated along the keel as the ship was slowly being released, and curled above them in the autumn wind and splendor of the sun. Barak led John around one side of the docks, where a skiff lay by the pier, with three spacers sleeping on the thwarts. Barak, as they approached, roared with temper.

"_Gentlemen_!" he addressed impassionedly, and, as they all stirred with alacrity, "Ah, so! Takin' a catnap whilst yer cap'm was now'ere t' be found, was ye?"

It was a spacer of counterfeit fortitude and the most gallant of salutes who was encouraged to respond, and as he presented his hail, he defended himself and the two others with the fact that the vessel was fully prepared for her dispatch, and the three had the brig's boat and were awaiting the return of their captain and his companion. "Issat 'im, Cap'm"? He asked, indicating John with a twitch of his finger.

"Are you '_cap'm_', sir?" John inquired covertly to Barak at his side, to which he simply winked at him in return, and asked John his full name. The Ursid replied, "John Silver."

Barak faced the spacer again. "Aye, this be he, t' be sure! The lad's name is Silver—take care ye remember that, for I won't have me errand boy doin' favors for anyone else besides meself that don't call 'im by his right name!"

"_Silver_?" repeated the spacer, after a startled exchange of glances with the others, "like in th' precious metal—_that_ kind o' silver?"

Barak's mouth hung open and he laughed. "Aye, sure enough, t'is like that! I hadn't ne'er thought o' that! To be sure! But no more dallyin', mates—there's a lady who awaits our board!"

John was steered toward the skiff and bade to sit between the thwarts on the bottom. As he stooped to obey, the spacer who had addressed Barak sat behind him before the tiller, and whispered gingerly, "'Ello, Silver. My name's Timeus. Did you make up yo' name?"

John smiled. "No."

The vessel was the _Oeil de la Mer_, and, as John leaned passed Barak's great bulk—for he had taken the thwart in front of John—to watch as they neared it in the little skiff that was to take them aboard, the first sight John's eyes leapt upon was the figurehead of a mermaid. As they neared, John saw her eyes were veiled by the carving of a cloth, and yet a slender and weightless arm extended in front of her, as if pointing the ship in its destination. It was a Carrack, as Timeus explained when he saw John peering out to it, which was a three-masted vessel with higher forecastles and aftcastles. "Bust me if she ain't one o' th' prettiest ladies ye ever did see!" John heard Barak sigh with coarse affection, and he looked out over the nebula to view her again, and, indeed, he thought her magnificent.

The stern and bow rose with a sweep into the air above the main deck, like two mountains and its valley between them, and the mainmast bloomed like a tree in the center of the ship; its spar branches reaching perpendicular against it, pulling in the sunlight from the sails. The rigging flowed downward and embraced the masts with their delicate grasps, and stood enduringly to see the ship follow the finger of its blind figurehead. John's tongue moved along the backs of his teeth, watching as they approached the vessel in a silent awe.

Thrill suddenly flourished inside John's young chest and heart, for John now determined that this was the true embodiment of consummated liberty; John's fears and aggressions were all assuaged and relinquished upon sight of the craft. He determined this was when life began. A life he could quell his desire for wealth with, his desire for happiness, and his desire for belonging. The _Oeil de la Mer_ was the passage to Heaven—where he would live in harmony for all the eternity he dared to wish he knew—and she would be guided by the Etherium and its golden arms.


	14. Chapter 13

_**Chapter 13:**_ John Silver; His Life aboard the Ship _Oeil de la Mer _

The Etherium curled and rippled in blue misty, pneumatic clouds, resembling the vividly swirled interior of a tiny marble—or of a water droplet—where shades of azure illuminate and quiver in their delicate confinement. The skies in this vast stretch of indigo brume billowed high in eternal purview, arched above the carrack and before the finger of its visionless figurehead, leaving the ethereal valley of ceruleans and nebulas seeming as though the infinity of angels, only known to the utmost divine. The Etherium was a surge of empyrean lights—a florescent kaleidoscope of ivory stars and celestial majesties—balancing the _Oeil de la Mer_ in the palm of its palatial hand.

The ship flew on immense white sails that glowed against the heavy beryl expanse. The wings spread unfurled, and the deck creaked and hummed as it roamed its rich province. The deck was thick with the color of the nebula, and rigging swung between the great masts of the ship's canopy, outlining the cries and songs of the sailors in their work, and of the devoted and familiar footfalls of the men on deck.

John Silver—who had effectively transformed himself into the pirate called Silver, as any fifteen year old youth could conceive, for the men only called him by his last name; and to this invention and appellation he remained loyal with allegiance, as we will also do henceforth—contributed to these gaits across the deck as his routine on the _Oeil de la Mer_ commenced as early as five in the morning. He had to serve at mealtimes, and this was the fulcrum of his operations; Barak—who had maintained his avowal to Welling that he would remain ultimately civil toward his young accomplice—refused to eat without being served by his own boy. This, however degrading as it seemed, was eulogistic to Silver, for he had learned from the exiguous two years he had spent in space that to be desired was to have a companion, and that a companion was a lifeline, and that such a lifeline was vital. It did, however, doom Silver to emerging from sleep at a grievous hour of the dawn, but the Ursid had no objection to it, for, at five in the morning, his eyes were open early, and possessed the ability to count the white stars like the very coins of a fortune.

Barak took his meals regularly, harmoniously with the first officer whom the crew referred to as Ponton—for he had escaped a Procyon prison hulk as a captive, _ponton_ the term for such a ship holding for captured pirates—and who was a young, stoic sailor of the Tuskrus race. Silver served Ponton conjointly, feeling Ponton a creature deserving of veneration, and he accepted his services with a quick nod of gratitude. In contrast, however, Barak bade Silver bring forth all he felt an impulse for (very often he desired rum), and during mealtimes Silver could be seen traversing the main deck with a variety of objects, having to run up and down the bright-autumn planks between the roundhouse where Barak and Ponton ate and the galley where most of his orders were located. The first year, when he had no sea legs for the business whatsoever, Silver fell numerously with what he was bringing Barak at even a tip of the bow, but the old brown pirate was composedly tolerant of his initial incompetency, until Silver adorned a firm balance on the _Oeil de la Mer_'s movements while sailing.

Being the deliverer of whatever necessity from the galley Barak felt was absent during his meals, Silver also established a relationship with the galley cook, who was named Mercurius, and was of the Zirrelian race. The first instance when Silver met Mercurius he was undoubtedly of about fifty, and one of the finest examples of Zirrelian cultures one would ever likely meet. With a thick Zirrelian accent, the many tentacles as limbs, the easy sway of his gait, and his compact physique, he seemed like the conception of Mesopotamia, or the Vikings, recreated into substantiality. The inherent and more productive instigators of this impression, however, could be considered to be stored in the abstract reality of his primordial instincts, balanced by a vague and only somewhat necessary bearing of ethics; the latter, quite possibly, was the only thing preventing the cook from making his way on all-fours.

Mercurius's cabin boy—a creature of a species unknown to Silver at that time, and little younger than Mercurius himself—had been killed the year before when he was strapped in ropes behind the _Oeil de la Mer _and keel-hauled for and hour and a half, and had not been replaced since. His death was the reminder of how dangerous Silver's life was with the murderous and impulsive pirates, and that remaining Barak's pet servant meant staying alive the next day. The punishment was for the attempted murder of Barak—the motivation still remained a mystery among the crew the year after; however, it was the rumor that Barak was not at all surprised when his attacker approached him with a knife from the galley. The entire crew, save the helmsman and Ponton, crowded about on the stern to watch the cabin boy receive his punishment, and be tortured long by the nebula and smoke from the ship's motor and the speed of the vessel against the constraints of the rope before he fell limp in his imprisonment. The whole of the man's ordeal, the crew whistled and sang at him, and poured rum on his head, shouting insults and laughing at his pleads for mercy. Silver was witness to everything until the ropes were cut and the body fell free into space, and, afterwards when he and Barak were alone, he asked him why he had let the man die if the keel-hauling was only for punishment.

"Them that die from keel-hauling die b'cause they ain't got life 'nough to preserve 'em," Barak answered somberly, "I've seen many o' time a man o' fortune survive from keel-haulin', boy; I meself bein' one o' them—and I'll tell ye now: keel-haulin' is on'y a test o' yer will t' live!"

Forever after that scene and after many other times he witnessed it reenacted, Silver remembered Barak's statement.

In regard to the rest of the crew, Silver had no correspondence. He merely represented the captain and their authority's boy—an operative that was identical to nothing they owned themselves, or was likely familiar with, but who was obviously not as important as Barak, and who was no better than the cabin boy, either. Thus, they paid him little heed, unless they spied him retrieving a dram for Barak, in which instance they would require some rum as well. Silver would bring it to them, additionally, feeling their neutral attitude relative to his existence was more propitious than falling into bad opinions.

Sporadically, however, they would lean very close to him and whisper worldly advice in his nervous ear; or, perhaps, when the decks were clear of most of the hands, and only the mates in a drunken slur lay about on the kegs of the inebriant, they would become superlatively articulate, and recite stories to each other and to Silver.

"Ye 'member ol' Nick?" one of them would rasp in his throat to the others. Yes, they all would usually remember Nick.

"Nick were a saint, 'e were."

"Nick were a scurvy-brute an' a bilge water rat!" One of them would cry with fury, and throw something across the deck—which could be heard as a sort of splash on the darkening ship—but settle back down and suck on his alcohol.

"Who was Nick?" Silver would inquire politely, emerging from a former silence that seemed to have only been absorbed in his work.

The first would smile affectionately, through the intoxication he suffered, at the thought of the now obscure Nick. "Nick," he would say, with glorified devotion, "Nick were a _mate_, 'e were. He were a true mate, that Nick."

Silver would then smile dimly to himself, envisioning a hairy beast, with a horrible mangled hand and a patch eye, embodying Nick, snarling at him so terribly it was humorous.

Another would cry piteously, "I 'member 'im! Nick should a' ne'er done what he done! He were a good boy, that Nick—but stupider n' me own hand. He could ne'er think straight, not he, but—oh!—he were a precious sea-calf!"

Silver would then lift his young head into the darkness, and watch the pirates murmur in agreement, and he would chuckle, for he had not known Nick, and he, upon his own fancy, widened the tremendous snarl on the vision he had created of the man, and applied what the pirate had said about him to this picture, and he chuckled.

"Nick would a' live for'ver, he would've. He had a Bible ev'rywhere 'e went, and I 'spects he had a good thin' goin' with th' Lord."

"_We_ certainly don't," another, more bitter and blindly drunk, would return, spitting upon the deck with a hollow pulse. This would incite a new ripple of solemn agreement.

"But," the first would continue, lifting a brown finger, "that man Nick must've lived 'bout two hunnerd years, leastways, and he tol' me once that he'd seen some things wickeder 'n th' devil 'imself!"

This would bring an excited murmur that billowed from the crowd, and they would begin to talk about the story with great zeal. "He sailed along side o' Jay Fitz th' Flyer, did 'e not?" One would entreaty, leaning forward into the lamplight, eyes wide.

"That 'e did, to be sure!" another would respond, and they all would rattle with pleasure. "Fitz th' Flyer was the worst o' v'em in th'erium after Flint!"—At such a statement, Silver's ears would prick with sudden vigilance—"He sailed 'round th' tips o' the Red Dwarf Star when it was a-spittin' fire, an' he plundered the Procyon Royal Tomb—with ghosts oohin' an' ahhhin' at all points 'round 'im!—and he were the man what drove the Densadron Galleass into the Comet of Dolor."

"Four-hundred-thirty-thousand coins spilled from their hold that day, an' he took all o' v'it."

"Aye, that he did, an' that's where 'e got his name, too—the _Flyer_."

"So says many, an' ye may lay to it!"

"An' no wonder! When he sent th' Galleass over, his men n' crew were _flyin'_ from their ship to th' other in one _jump_!"

Silver's head would turn. It would be very dark. One of the men would move in the sphere of red light from the lantern in the middle of the crowd. The group would shatter to silence, and for a long time, they would sit very still as their faces moved and flickered in the small fire light.

Then another would speak again. "Tip us a stave, Bill."

"Th' old one."

So they would sing the sailing song—the old one—and Silver would be carried back to the forecastle on their odd note, and dream about flying over the rock shards of the Comet of Dolor and the splinters from the heavy Densadron Galleass, looking down upon four-hundred-thirty-thousand goldspecies.

Such occurrences passed on rare instances. No one else of the hands spoke regularly to Silver aside of Barak. Only Timeus paid him such application. Timeus proved to be a friend almost upon the instant of Silver's arrival. The young Terran was the only person with whom Silver engaged in genuine and affectionate mannerism, although the friendship with Timeus was not at all as valuable as his with Barak. In fact, Silver fancied that his friendship with Timeus was more advantageous to the other, for Timeus was a very cowardly and unassertive rigger—who continually complained of horrible bouts of illness and fever—and was treated worse by the other pirates than Silver was. The only deckhand who communicated with him kindly was Silver, who seemed to be the only one of Barak's hands to understand the exercise of sympathy and compassion.

Timeus was the only person to whom Silver confided that his father had died when he was twelve, and how great the sorrow of it still weighed upon him time after time. Timeus then, after Silver had disclosed this information, empathized tremulously with the admittance of a young wife he had not seen in four years, for soon after they had married, a very jealous suitor hired men to abandon him in space.

"I'm sure I were skin n' bones when this 'ere ship found me at last. They fished me out, and I've been workin' 'ere, now, and I 'aven't seen 'er since," Timeus sighed, the darkness very thick and heavy in the forecastle when the events of their sorrows were exchanged.

John pitied the man, however foolish it made him feel, and inquired in a low voice: "What was her name?"

"Isabella," he whispered, and John could feel the tears in Timeus's sad and sickly eyes through the blinding black.

Barak laughed aloud when Silver asked him if there was a possibility in turning the ship toward Timeus's home planet the morning after he had heard his story. "Barak attends t' Barak's own business," the captain stated with a cordiality that exasperated Silver, "it just so happens that th' ship has t' go with me when I do!"

So Silver repudiated the idea of Timeus and Isabella, and decided John Silver attended to John Silver's own business as well. He thusly would retreat into the shrouds when Barak did not require his benefit, and watch the pirates administer their labor, instead of searching for a conversation with a hand. He understood he was considered a part of the subjugated on the ship, and understood Timeus accompanied him in their dogmatism, and he silently promised Timeus an interminable alliance.

On one such withdrawal, Silver's feet slipped into the brown shrouds as the _Oeil de la Mer_ neared the elegant blossom of a star's light that threw coral and gold onto the unfolding nebula. It was late morning; Barak had eaten his breakfast, and had given Silver the rest of it—which was a piece of hard bread and salt junk, the staple diet Mercurius furnished in the galley, except every twice a week when there was duff and mantabird egg white—and Silver chewed inattentively at the meal as he examined the crew spirit about the deck and the masts like flies, and surveyed the infinite field of roses behind them beyond the bulwarks.

The fuchsia blazed on their faces, but, as Silver watched, it flared on Barak's face the brightest, and, with his great coat in its mighty crimson, he seemed as though caught aflame. Preoccupied suddenly by this visionary phenomenon, Silver's eyes focused on the man as he crossed the deck and demanded genially to be handed a telescope, and Silver bit down on the bread that was in his mouth, but instead of pulling off a bite of the fare, he painfully penetrated his tongue. Recoiling with a small outcry, he tossed the bread into this left hand and thrust his right into his mouth to massage the injury. When he removed his finger, it was stained with gleaming blood, and the rust-earth taste of it rippled in his mouth.

This was not a matter of concern for long, however, for Barak, having received his spyglass, shouted to all hands on deck with delectation. "Make due t' go about port, gentleman! I spies with me little eyes a fair game, what promises a fair share for everyone who participates, too!"

Silver wondered at this, and, wiping his finger of the blood on his pant leg, he crossed the deck to the port side, where he saw, with amazement, a galleon in the distance flying an Aquanog flag on the mainmast through the heave of the red nebula.


	15. Chapter 14

_**Chapter 14:**_ John Silver; His First Act of Piracy

An excitement throbbed down the deck as the hands swept over the planks to prepare the ship of its impending assault. The red nebula burned silently, watchfully; stroking the hull of the _Oeil de la Mer_ with approbatory demur. The white shimmering sound of cutlasses withdrawing from hilts rang sporadically in the air. The men shouted and laughed underneath the tension that expanding on the ship. Bullets exploded with a splintering crack into the scarlet mist hanging in the thickness swirling around the sails. Barak called for the Jolly Roger, and the eye of his telescope flashed white, and the flag flew up the mainmast like a crow, with a ripping sound as it threshed in the unheard wind.

A flutter of feet on the deck wood, and Timeus stood beside Silver before the bulwarks. "Lord 'elp us," he groaned softly, "I hate it when this 'appens."

Silver, unresponsive, trained his eyes and squinted through the inflamed silence of the nebula and caught the ship in his sight. The sails were blooming, consecutively, down the rows of masts. They had seen the pirates' flag. "I think they're trying to escape," Silver observed with apathy, very low in his throat. His palms were sweating on the wood of the bulwarks. He removed them.

"I hope they do!" Timeus rejoined passionately, with a strain in his voice to avoid becoming louder than a whisper. The deck was very quiet. Silver still watched the sails of the Aquanog ship. Timeus continued shrilly, "I don't want to kill anyone anymore."

The rest of the crew, however—Silver knew—wanted to kill as many of these Aquanogs as accessible. Silver's eyes slid sideways. "I've never been allowed to board the other ships' decks when we attack like this," he observed again, turning toward Timeus, but his eyes distant. The wind rippled lightly through his hair. "I've always been ordered to the roundhouse."

"I know. 'T's not fair, I say! Why is it that you're not allowed t' 'elp fight?"

Silver knew the answer. "Barak doesn't want to lose his boy."

The ship groaned to port, and the finger of the figurehead tilted toward the light of the Galampaler sun—toward the Aquanog ship. The two watched this—Timeus very ill at ease; Silver quite distant and strangely indifferent—as the claret bow wheeled toward the pirates' prey in silence.

Laughter. Very soft at first, but then, slowly, climbed up and up and up towards the peaks of the masts as the pirates began to watch the ship as they approached. Silver felt Timeus move behind him, but his eyes fell on Barak as he peered gleefully into his spyglass, still seemingly aflame in his red coat. Silver's brow fell.

"Silver," Timeus whispered behind him, miles away. "D'you see that?"

Silver turned around. He saw Timeus leaning over the side of the ship, staring. "See what?"

"That, there."

Silver followed Timeus's gaze and found the Aquanog ship had unfurled their sails and were now struggling to flee from the _Oeil de la Mer_'s threat. _It's getting away; _he thought fleetingly, _we've got to go faster_…

Barak jerked down the companionway from his perch on the main deck, in his crimson shadow, and cried for Ponton to speed up the ship, as though he had shared Silver's thoughts. "So, it's a chase they want t' give us, aye?" Barak thought aloud with a spectacular oath, echoed by Ponton's distant orders to the specialist below deck to increase the solar power intake, "They'll get themselves a chase then, by thunder!"

The ship heaved upward, a groan creaking out through the planks. The men went up and down like birds, blindly, running up shrouds and companionways; their weapons in their teeth; their hands straining on the rigging, bringing the figurehead to face the reeling, unreachable skies above them. Like this they climbed, while the sails inhaled the scarlet light, and screamed in the direction of the extended arm of the figurehead, as the whole of the ship whistled against the air.

Silver's clothes and hair whipped about him, stinging his arms as the cloth clawed about him in the wind. Leaning far over the bulwarks, he saw the Aquanog ship slide twenty feet beneath the _Oeil de la Mer_'s hull. Timeus stiffened, his white shirt boiling about him, making him only just visible. Silver, still hanging over the bulwarks, hanging over the Aquanog ship, could see the flecks of the crew bestirring across their deck, and looking up at him.

The Aquanog cannons were being fired, and Silver was inflamed with fear, but knew the Aquanog ship could not aim above them, and the Aquanogs knew it, too. Silver spun on his heel, suddenly burning with efficacy, and faced the ship's starboard side just as the pirates began laughing at the ship below them, and singing, "Let them shoot! We'll catch 'em still! They're already dead!"

The ship fell. Upon Barak's orders, the sails shrank and the ship fell, like a bomb, and dropped down to the front of the pirates' prey, hovered at the face of their bow—the sails ringing with wind—and the pirates chanting, "Let them fight! We'll catch 'em still! They're already dead!"

Silver was in the center of the deck, turning. His eyes fell on Barak, who seemed to be the source of the red nebulous fire, and called for him soundlessly among the chants and singing and running. Barak looked as though a sparkling red fish underwater, moving brokenly against the flurries of pirates running for the bulwarks, and he looked at Silver. "To th' roundhouse with ye, boy!" the captain resounded, and Silver spilled inside the roundhouse in a dizzy blur.

The sounds of the attack could not be heard in the roundhouse when the pirates breeched the ship they were raiding. Silver had encountered such raids before this, and had always secured himself in the roundhouse as Barak had wished him to. Overwrought, Silver would bide insufferably in the small compartment, with the silence drumming about in his ears, his mind thinking relentlessly of the battle raging on the ship next to his. He often heard the pirates blather and slither the raids on their tongues after one of them occurred, telling the other of how they counted up to ten of them that they killed, or telling of how much gold was uncovered on one body alone. Silver listened to them with fervid horror, listening of the thousands of men or space creatures who died under the slash of the pirates' swords, or who shattered at the sound of a gunshot. But none of that could be heard in the roundhouse where Silver braved the battle—not the screams of pain the victims sang, nor the explosion of powder that caused immediate death, nor the sound of the blade slicing lustily at the throat of some poor man—but Silver could easily see, every hour he concealed himself in the roundhouse during another attack, the fire-red blood cascade down the decks and march down into the scuppers, bleeding into the nebula as it swirled in its pernicious avidity. The sounds themselves, however, could never be heard, and his temples pulsed with the relief that they could not be.

They could never be heard. Silver had learned they could not be; as much as he strained his ears, as much as he tried to grasp the faintest whisper of the death that sluiced out of the ship and from the wounds the pirates induced—and as hard as he tried not to hear it—no sounds transuded into the roundhouse. He had learned it was impossible to hear them.

Yet there they were.

The sounds.

Inside his mind. The chanting…

_Let them fight, we'll catch 'em still, they're already dead!_

Silver heard the pirates drown and drawl on the words, eating them, fawning them, falling and rising, swelling and deflating, and chanting still…

_Let them fight, we'll catch 'em still, they're already dead!_

Silver looked around and searched for them. There were not there. Of course they were not there—they were fighting on another ship. The pirates had breeched over their enemies' bulwarks and were now worlds away, some butchering, some dying, some laughing, some chanting…

_Let them fight, we'll catch 'em still, they're already dead!_

Silver sat on the center table and hugged his knees. He buried his face in his knees, moved it over, and replaced it between them again. Before long, he felt watched and so moved to a corner and hugged himself there, his eyes closed so tight he could see the blood run down the wooden decks…

_Catch them, kill them, open their veins! _

Silver's head lifted.

The pirates were still on board the _Oeil de la Mer_, chanting.

He could hear them. Silver's blood froze. His arms numbed. He stopped breathing.

_Kill them! Open their veins! They're already dead!_

Silver could hear them. But they could not be heard! He had learned they could not be!

He crossed the roundhouse floor in a sweeping leap, jumped onto the far table, and unhooked the skylight hatch. A gunshot shivered into the air. Silver's legs threatened to faint underneath him, and his teeth rattled in his head. With a hazy hand, he lifted the window slightly, slowly, cautiously, and raised himself so his eyes overcame the sill and overflowed beyond the wood.

The blood did not march, as Silver had imagined, but was scarlet ice on the wooden deck, still and standing stiffly in masses. The pirates flickered like flies in their imposing clothing, running their swords through the Aquanogs and leaving fountains of fire littered arbitrarily across the deck. Flowing, ducking, jumping, roaring, screaming, chanting; in a haze they scintillated down the deck and into the spilled cruor—both Silver's crewmates and the Aquanogs—sending droplets high into the air like sparks of fire. Silver flew down the deck with his eyes, and caught the port bulwarks flooded with Aquanog fronts, crossing to the _Oeil de la Mer_'s deck by planks lain across the opposite bulwarks.

_Let them die! Rip them open! Smear their blood!_

The pirates howled. All of them smiled senselessly. Barak stood near the main deck, his red coat gleaming ensanguined.

Silver fell on his knees, and scrambled in hysteria back to the corner table, where he hid his face amongst the wooden chairs, giddily and aberrantly delirious. Sweat dripped from his face. He wiped it from his eyes and thought it blood.

Silver saw for the first time during one of these raids the impossibility of his environment. A great anger and horror filled him, for he wanted more than anything at this moment to be able to do something. But do what?

Now, as if he had just discovered the horror—or perhaps in an answer to his desire— he began to scream. In a nightmare, he saw Barak in the crimson raiment, amidst the battle. For what purpose would any man wish to kill another and drink away their life? Why would the pirates smile and laugh and chant so like demons during the act?

"Stop it!"

Silver's screams were smothered in his tongue. He thought idiotically that perhaps the voice was his father's, and he had come with a glimmer of golden sun to pull him loose from the tables and massacre…

A fallacy. His screams transpired from his throat once again upon facing the owner of the voice, and finding an Aquanog standing over him, drawn by the noise and having entered by the unlocked skylight. Sunlight surged into the room after him.

"Stop that, now!" The Aquanog roared, over Silver's moans, as he lifted his cutlass over his knees.

Silver's mouth shut with a clamor. _Get away_!

The Ursid flung himself over, and banged his knees against the planks. He clawed and thrashed forward, like a drowning swimmer, down further beneath the table. The cutlass came down against the floor. _He's going to kill me_!

An insane panic throttled up his legs and chest. Silver felt his entire body flutter with it when the Aquanog slid the table away and revealed him underneath it. His skin crawling on his bones, Silver lurched forward onto his feet, close to the creature, and then down he fell from his bearings passed the alien's arms and weapon, and leapt up behind him. The Aquanog whirled around, and Silver saw he would have been close to his fingertips had he reached out.

Breathing brokenly, Silver projected himself out at his attacker, landing with a crash of piercing cries on the impaction, and sent the Aquanog against the wall with a thundering blow. Silver reached out and caught both the Aquanog's wrists in his hands, and shrieked dismayingly, "Were you going to _kill_ me?"

The Aquanog only struggled to free himself from Silver's constriction.

"You _were_ going t' kill me!" Silver cried, shaking profusely.

The Aquanog stared at him, contemptuously. Bitterly. He fell to stillness, breathing, in a crack of silence.

Silver's face contorted with a sudden, ferine infuriation. He inhaled sharply, snarling. Silver would not let this creature kill him! No one would kill him! He was not going to die on his back with his feet in the air, weeping vacuously. It would not happen! "You think you're going t' kill me?" he breathed, "I'll kill you _first_."

The Aquanog's eyes widened as Silver relieved the cutlass from one of his hands that were trapped above him. Silver released the Aquanog's hands, which came down in a gale of working, protesting fingers. The white sliver of that mercurial blade entered the Aquanog's belly easily, and in effect the hands followed the blade into it in an attempt to prevent it. It was as though dipping a stick of wood into a cold pool of calm water. It made the foreign, isolated, tantalizing crackle of dry leaves. The fluid fingered down the sword, crawled down the neck, and dripped from the steel onto the ground with a vacant percussion. Silver's eyes, blue and brilliant, searched and found the eyes that peeked from the loaf of flesh that his sword now agilely bore the weight of. They shone with confusion, shock; void of emotion, void of understanding. Silver could feel the warmth spread from the wound. Silver pulled the blade from the Aquanog—a dull whistle of a hatchet snapping a tree—and the liquid gleamed radiant on the floor.

_I have the power to kill him._

The sword sank into the warm body again, this time more forcefully, zealously, above the first, in his shoulder. The same quiet crackle played euphorically inside Silver's head, and the red fingers danced and traced down the blade and the clothes, florid and effulgent.

_This must be why they like it so much. Such power you have over everyone. Think of it! Already fifteen years old and only now realizing I had such a power!_

Again the sword was removed and again it plunged, for a third time. Only fifteen years old and only now discovering that rare living executioner; that homicide, dark-eyed and piceous, wrapped and mummified and found in the roundhouse; the place Barak thought to be the best location to protect Silver from this education! The eyes inside the Aquanog's head clouded with a yellow, like fractured lemon glass. A cough drained from inside the creature's throat, and the body jerked upon the steel. Silver removed it, and the Aquanog fell into a heap of smoldering red.

Barak was reverent when he saw the corpse.


	16. Chapter 15

_**Chapter 15: **_John Silver; How His Act of Piracy Affects Him

Barak resembled Silver's prize in every fancy, save for the fact he stood, moved about, and stared with admiration and approbation at the comparable remains. He was, in every aspect otherwise, much like a corpse himself; his coat—the great red coat that Silver had admired the day he met the man— each of his hands, and his face was spattered with flecks of gleaming blood, and his clothes were tattered in great slashes along his torso and sleeves. His own blood dripped from his right shoulder unevenly, and crusted about the wound with vigor, though he never heeded it until he lumbered below deck several hours after his inspection of the fruits of Silver's exploit.

After the captain's late, somewhat curtailed correspondence with Silver as the siege began, Barak had entertained little expectancy to be presented with an enemy that was affirmed to be run through—thrice, nonetheless—by his little server boy, but he bore extensive ovation to Silver upon beholding such proficient craftsmanship on the body and observable mastery of the sword.

He inquired to Silver if he had been trained in fencing, or of the possibility that he had ever seen the activity tried.

"No sir," answered Silver, after a pause to look about him. By this time, most of the pirates had accumulated about Barak—and some others clustered around the door of the roundhouse, among them Timeus; all of whom resembled corpses as well—to view Silver's esteemed handiwork. Silver, internally, was still being inundated by the power he had earned when he stole away with the Aquanog's life, and he quivered slightly from the entrancing trial; the realization of capacity being expensive, but worth all he paid. With hair erect on his nape, he delighted himself morbidly on the thought of his potential—his authority over the other individuals in the room. Their lives could be taken by a simple act, which could be realized by even a boy of fifteen.

Barak continued to review the body. He then jumped at Silver's answer minutes after it had been given, as though he had just heard it. "Ne'er seen the sword tried, boy?"

"No, never."

Barak slapped one thigh as he turned back to the body. "Shiver me sides! An' with sich a clean cut as that! Ye is a pride t' have in tow, Silver, I'll give ye _that_ faster n' I drink me brandy, though it's a mite _shockin'_, t' be sure!"

Silver's eyes glistened up toward Barak's great head. He smiled. He would not kill Barak, he decided frivolously, despite the fact he had the ability to do so whenever he wished—which he considered very merciful on his own part. Barak had always been significantly affable toward him, and was most likely the sole reason he had survived so long among the pirates—the pirates that had so long known of Silver's new found power, and could have used it against Silver whenever they liked.

Barak looked up from the Aquanog and glanced at the pirates lingering in the doorways around him in the roundhouse. "Gentlemen," he grinned, his yellow teeth blazing against the red clustered about his face, "start a-cleanin' this mess off o' me ship, but take this here heap o' guts to me stateroom when I says for ye to; clean 'im up, and take his fingerprints. Then toss 'im into th' drink. Silver," Barak looked down at the Ursid, who was looking down at his murder. The pirates, responding, fell away from their positions to comply Barak's orders, leaving the two alone with the corpse.

"Silver, I want ye t' learn somethin', boy", Barak said, his voice coarsely and crackling with what seemed like elegant kindness, and he stooped down beside the body's legs, and gestured sweetly for Silver to follow. Bending his knees, the adolescent placed himself next to Barak, and moved hair from before his eyes. Barak put his face very close to Silver's, grinning, and said in a low voice, "afore my teachings, though, Silver, I need ye t' answer me a question."

"All right."

Barak's eyes seemed to point to the corpse with a jerk in its direction. "What," Barak asked, even lower, "what made ye do it? What happened?"

Silver was suddenly taken by a dull fear. Was Barak implying that Silver had disobeyed him, and had left the roundhouse to submerge into the fray? Quickly, Silver glanced at Barak, and then at the Aquanog. Was it true? Silver bit his lip. Had he actually left the roundhouse? He suddenly could not remember; all he recollected from the hour before was the sound of the sword penetrating the body.

"I didn't leave the roundhouse," Silver answered, falteringly. "He… _he_ found _me_."

"Why'd you kill 'im, boy?"

Silver considered this to be an appropriate question. Why had he killed him? Silver did not know. At the time, he had not been aware of the power he would possess if he did kill him, so that would not be the proper motivation to conclude upon. He strained his mind to remember, but all he could surface was the red nebula—the red, murderous haze—the skylight, and the chanting.

"I… I didn't leave the roundhouse," Silver repeated, awkwardly, absurdly. "He came in and… found me there."

Barak's patience was consoling. He let a pause respire, and they both stooped over the body in silence.

Silver found himself staring at the Aquanog's yellowed eyes. They were round and bulged from their sockets, like death had made them swell, and the black little pupils curved up toward the ceiling, understanding nothing. Silver's eyes suddenly felt wide to him, and he was seized by a horrifying idea that his eyes looked like the Aquanog's. He blinked, and saw a mural of the blood covering the deck painted on the back of his eyelids.

Silver felt a warm hand catch his chin and turn his head from the Aquanog to Barak's face. Silver's eyes lifted, and saw Barak's brown skin and sunken eyes. They were not comforting, nor were they kind or gentle, or even remotely compassionate, but they understood him; they betrayed the life they supported, which was a consolation of its own. A tangle of Silver's eyelashes framed his window of vision. "I didn't want to die," Silver answered, with a stronger voice than what was to be expected. "That's why I killed him."

Barak clapped a hand on Silver's shoulder benignly and casually, having gotten his answer and keeping it to himself, as though he had tucked it delicately away in his coat pocket. "Ah, boy!" he said with a heavy exhale, "If _that_'s all! Come, look here with me, now, and then I'll let ye go t' yer berth an' rest."

With great dignity—like a surgeon with a patient—Barak gingerly unbuttoned the Aquanog's shirt, and threw it open with a flick of his hand. He then straightened, looked at Silver, and said, in a low voice once more, "Put yer hand in that there pocket, Silver."

Silver looked perplexedly at Barak. Still, the captain insisted with more excited gestures toward the shirt pocket that he had indicated, and Silver allowed himself to reach over and slip his fingertips inside the cloth, and then retracted it rapidly. He looked again at Barak, with one raised eyebrow.

Barak shook his head slowly. "_Dee_per."

Silver, cautiously, reached over into the cloth pocket again, deeper, this time.

An angelic, cold sting met his fingertips with a surprise that made his hand freeze. "I feel something," Silver thought aloud, inadvertently.

"Well, pull it out, by thunder!" Barak laughed, playfully agitated.

Silver pulled his hand back out, and revealed three coruscating coins of an origin he did not recognize. "Aye!" the brown spacer beside him whistled in awe, "Them be the coins of th' olden days, when Flint sailed th'erium, t' be sure! They's extra-special coins, an' ye may lay to it."

The name Flint made Silver's ears buzz and his head clatter with such suddenness, Silver could have ratified that Barak had struck him hard. "_Flint_?" Silver repeated loudly, "do you _mean_ that?"

"Aye, boy, by all a' me heart, I do! Them coins is worth keepin'."

Silver moved the coins in his palm with his thumb. "Are they mine to keep?"

"Ye killed the man, did ye not?"

"Yes…"

Barak laughed. "Then they're _yours_! They're yer prize for takin' part in the raid, and I 'spect ye deserve 'em. Ye better remember that, too, by thunder, or else some of yer mates'll get to yer prizes first. Then you'd have t' slit a few _extra_ throats t' get 'em."

Silver raised his eyebrows, but said nothing more. He had never considered it. Barak had always paid Silver for his work as his servant, and had always paid him his ten goldspecies, and Silver had always been satisfied. He had never once assumed that he could add to his earnings if he ever participated in the raids.

A hot compulsion flared up inside his body—one that had slept dormant for two years and now burned more invigorated and incandescent after being so long forgotten on the sweeping waves of the Etherium. He must become rich.

Silver spread the coins out on the floor, and bent forward to search through the rest of the pockets—any pocket on the body—he could find. Each time he retrieved a new handful of coins, they were the same as the ones he had pulled earlier. "How much," Silver asked, while exploring through the Aquanog's pants pockets, "how much are these coins worth?"

Barak shifted his weight from left to right, and he remained quiet a while, like a mountain, simply watching Silver. "Oh," he rejoined at length, busily, "I s'pose we're lookin' at roughly… by _yer_ standards… one hunnerd of yer goldspecies."

Silver threw the coins down on the roundhouse wood floor in front of him in ecstasy. He counted them. "I have _ten_ of 'em, Barak!"

Before Barak had the chance to speak, Silver turned back to the body, revealed a scrap of paper and an ink pen, and leapt to one of the tables. Barak stood, stiffly, slowly, his eyes after Silver. He lingered on his feet, and then moved wearily to the table as well, and looked over Silver's shoulder. Silver was ferociously scribbling a math problem on the paper.

"Ye _writes_, boy?" the Captain demanded, at a high octave in his voice, as he pushed Silver's shoulder out of the way so he could place an amazed eye in close proximity of the numerical phenomenon. Silver, recovering from his initial shock, was lost to utter confusion. He had written since he was a young child! "Of course I write," He responded, "Who doesn't write?"

Barak lifted the sheet of paper, and his black eye glistened across the penmanship. "None o' me crew, by thunder, ye _learned_ little rap-scallion!"

Silver looked skeptically at the man hunched over the simple equations Silver had written. None of the crew was educated? Silver wasn't going to believe it. His father had emphasized education so; surely someone else had felt so strongly about it as well in the presence of the pirates. How could everyone on a ship escape the importance of basic skills in writing?

Barak leapt the little distance between them, and put his face very close to Silver's, and demanded, almost maliciously, "An' ye _read_ this, too, don'tche?"

"Yes, I _read_ it." Silver said, insistently. "I read, write, and I do math. Is it _that_ hard to—?"

Barak was no longer paying him any heed; he turned back to the little scrap of paper and fingered the exotic, alien lettering. Silver was impacted with the realization Barak could not read it.

"It only says that I have ten hundred worth of goldspecies in those coins." Silver replied to Barak's big, red back.

A pause. "Go t' yer berth, now, lad," the great man said, lowly, monotonously. "Yer a mite tired, no doubt."

Silver airily collected his coins and floated to the door, until the captain again called his name. He turned and looked at Barak, who hadn't moved. "Yes?" Silver prompted, detachedly.

Barak rotated to face Silver, and he grinned. He shook the piece of paper in the air, close to his ear, and he asked Silver, "Do ye want t' officially be part o' th' crew?"

"Officially?"

"Aye. Do ye want t' be considered a pirate no matter where ye go, and no matter who ye talk to, no matter who ye with? Do ye want to be a man o' fortune yerself, or do ye still want t' be the _boy_ o' 'va man o' fortune?"

Silver wavered on his feet, indecisively. "Will," he murmured, "will I be able to take my place in th' raids with you, and get in on the money you find on your prizes, instead of sittin' in the roundhouse like you've always had me do?"

"Definitely, boy."

Silver lowered his brow, and looked at Barak. He was grinning. "Then yes," Silver replied, mirroring the smile, imagining the many hundreds worth of coins he would obtain, "I want to be a pirate."

On deck, as the Ursid fingered his way down to the forecastle, the setting sun reminded Silver so much of Barak's grin in the roundhouse, he lightly laughed at it.

The induction procedure was performed in the earliest hours of the morning. Silver was roused peremptorily by Timeus and Mercurius from the forecastle and told brusquely by the latter to wake swiftly and follow them onto the deck—Barak had called for Silver. Arduously, into the beacon detonating from the lantern Timeus carried, Silver ascended to a sitting position, and then the cook ensnared his forearm and threw him to his feet, Silver in a somnolent, dully disconcerted haze.

"What time is it?" Silver asked in a voice almost of a moan, his eyes blurring with distress.

"'bout two in th' mornin'." Timeus answered. "Barak wants ye. He says—"

"Nix t' whot th' cap'm says!" interrupted Mercurius, with a breathless oath. "Let 'im find out fer hisself."

"Does he want me t' change?" Silver asked, as the cook pulled him by the arm in the direction of the forecastle door.

"Th' Cap'm don't care, is whot I make o'v it. Long's yer _dressed_, is what I says, an' ye may lay t' _that_!" Mercurius answered him, fleetingly, as the two—followed by the pendulant lamplight carried by the dark figure of the craven Timeus—departed the forecastle.

A fog spread thick around the deck and waltzed fragmentarily, cloaked in the darkness and masked with the stars. The black deck swelled in Silver's eyes, and momentarily, he could only see tens of thousands of gleaming yellow amoebas swinging like Timeus's lamplight until his vision adjusted to the new atmosphere. The ship lingered on the starboard tack, and, like black ghosts, Silver could see under the arched foot of the foresail a pod of Orci Galacti in the nebula. Desultorily, he heard them call distantly to the light on the ship, and they moved in their echoes.

Silver slowed his pace, warily watching Mercurius, and sidled close to Timeus. "What are we doing?" he asked in a rough whisper.

"Makin' you a pirate," Timeus returned, barely above a whisper.

Silver paused to think. "Have you been made a pirate?"

"No," Timeus answered. "I've no idea what they're goin' t' do."


	17. Chapter 16

_**Chapter 16**_: John Silver; How He Became a Pirate

The light of Barak's stateroom effloresced in a golden, silken sphere in the midst of the deck's darkness. Mercurius, climbing the companionway with a vivid report of his feet upon the wood, was silhouetted for a moment on the main deck before the chamber, and then he entered the doors of the room into a flood of noise. Silver could hear the pirates' voices from within the interior, and he believed for a moment Barak had composed a celebration to extol the success of the day's raid.

Timeus sighed, lowering the lantern as Silver and he reached the companionway Mercurius had presently scaled before them. "I don't feel good 'bout this," Timeus grieved. "I just don't get th' right feeling…"

Silver exhaled loudly, scoffing with an irate smile. "You don't feel good about _any_thin', Timeus," he accused, gripping the rope banisters and pulling a foot to the first step. He looked over his shoulder to show Timeus his smile in the lamplight, and said, "I'm not scared, and I'm years younger than you. You're not very much of a spacer, are you?"

Receiving nothing for a response, Silver ascended the stairs, laughing slightly at the coward he was leaving behind him. He reached the main deck and opened the stateroom doors that Mercurius had disappeared through in full spirits, stepping into the oasis of light and cacophony of voices. The cook's voice was the first thing that reached Silver's ears, crying, "'Ere he be, lads! There be the boy we here for!"

In a rushing moment, the pirates turned like one pouncing creature and leapt on Silver with forty hands. Daunted, Silver struggled against them impassionedly before he perceived his panic, but the pirates availed, pulling him to his knees, pulling his head back by his hair, and putting a brown flask of rum alcohol to his lips. Silver inhaled sharply, and tasted the sting of the liquid in his mouth, but harvested no air. His tongue worked over the waterfall, and finally channeled it down his throat. Spilling from both corners of his mouth, the potent elixir blazed down, taking with it the sudden upheaval of fear Silver had amounted, and diffusing it in his stomach. He drank with chokes for air, lustily, for the entirety of sixty seconds, until the flask was pulled from his mouth.

The pirates laughed, as Silver could well hear, but the sound was driven wildly up and down his spinning head as he gasped for air after his ingurgitation. His hair was released, and, seizing his freedom, he bent his head forward and tried to laugh as well, but his ears drummed madly, and he coughed. Rusted fire burned down his esophagus and inflamed behind his breastbone.

"Well, Silver," Barak's voice was above him, "Ye likes rum, do ye? Well, men! Would we grudge this boy 'ny more?" Silver looked up and saw hands reach for him again. He closed his eyes, and his head was brought up once more, and he felt the flask impact his lips. This time, with excitement, he brought his hands up and supported the flask by himself, and he quaffed again, readily. The pirates laughed once more, Barak's rising above the others.

Silver's lungs tightened, and he exhaled furiously as he dropped the container from his mouth. The pirates began to clap the boy on his back and shoulders, to adulate him for his performance, and equally to mollify his convulsions of coughs, laughing at his paucity of forbearance against alcohol.

He recovered at length, and when he opened his eyes again, he beheld Barak looming before him. "So…" Barak grinned, his teeth reflecting the mustard-yellow light in the room, "Ye wants to be a gentleman o' fortune, issat right?"

Silver opened his mouth to answer, but only coughed again, which made the stateroom walls quiver with laughter. The Ursid could feel himself color with mortification, and, angered at himself for such a display, and angered by the pirates' laughter, he turned his eyes on Barak and scowled. "Yes," he answered loudly.

This successful answer brought the congregation to a cheer, but Silver maintained his eyes on the captain, letting a smile spread his lips, showing his teeth to only that man. Barak's eyes, in turn, flickered with mischief, but Silver could still detect the shallow radiation of pride and admiration that he exuded in response to Silver's attestation. Barak's eyes then swept over the conflux, crying over their subsiding acclamations, "Didja' hear that, mates?"

"Aye!" they clamored in return.

"He wants t' be a pirate! Did th' lad say that?"

"Aye, he did!"

"_Is_ he a pirate, lads?"

"Ask it o' Davy!"

This reply ignited a new vociferation of glee, and the pirates behind Silver, to Silver's astonishment, lifted him from his feet and carried him to the center of the room. They dropped him in a heap before Barak, who had moved to the location as well, and, as Silver regained his position, Barak demanded, "Ye knows of Davy Jones, don't ye, Silver?"

He said he did. The sailors who had employed him at the docks before Jonas had been imprisoned had told him of the term.

Barak's face shone with devoutness for Silver—as Silver had intuitively deciphered—while he addressed the stateroom once again, his arms open. "Then, gentlemen," he cried, "let's nay _daw_dle!"

The room seemed to heave into its lemon middle, and Silver, as his eyes flinched, found himself completely in darkness. The sound of the men laughing accumulated anew, and Silver, opening his eyes again, was bathed in an impetuous throng of liquid. Stunned, Silver stood erect and stiff, dripping the substance from his hair and clothing, his arms arched like willow branches. He looked up, and saw Barak's face—the ever-smiling teeth—watching him in an imperious ambiance. Silver straightened with a start, only to be collided with a second interval of the pirates' aqueous missiles, this time from the opposite direction of the preliminary onslaught. Then he smelt it. It was rum.

Smitten torpid by dull consternation—although not rendered so much by fear as stupefaction—he stood acquiescently as the pirates pursued their onset against him and discharged the alcohol. In the center of this empty bewilderment, his head seemed inconsequentially unsound upon his shoulders, and his temples beat a silent tattoo on either side beneath the surges of sound in the stateroom.

The impaction made by the alcohol gradually was accompanied by the pirates driving their palms into his shoulder blades in order to throw him off balance, and, because of this additional ordeal, the collisions became increasingly heavier to withstand and still remain on both feet. Thusly, Silver—with what he considered his unsecured head rocking up and down the valleys and peaks of his shoulders—began to falter and reel each time a new effusion shattered against his back as he desperately tried to conserve his balance.

The pirates continued to laugh and enjoy themselves as they poured the rum onto Silver's head, which confounded the Ursid, and caused him malicious indignation as he sustained their amusement for them—for the abortive price of sacrificing his own person, nonetheless—but he bore it reticently, partly because he desired to ascertain to the rouges that he was capable of prevailing over any grievances they could offer, and partly because he was half intoxicated by his earlier carouses, and could no longer successfully stay on both his feet.

Presently, Silver's balance was obscured to him for a moment, and the brown wood stood up and met his right shoulder with a severity that burst a cry out of him in his stupor. This offense earned double the peals of chortles from the pirates he had assumed for the previous few minutes of his ordeal, and again his face burned with angry ignominy, but he was not given the opportunity to recover his bearings, for as quickly as he had collapsed, the pirates swarmed above him to pour their alcohol on him even more.

Silver thought of the cabin boy who had not endured the keel hauling, and for the last hours of his miserable life he was forced to choke on the pirates' rum as they poured it on his head while he dangled off the ship's stern. Barak had said it was discipline and resolve alone that could have been the deciding attributes to preserve the cabin boy's life, and the lack of them were the deciding factors that killed him. Silver's heart of hearts, as wretched as he was, prayed that he was more so endowed with these attributes than the cabin boy that now drifted lifelessly in the depths of the Etherium.

A brown flask cracked against his back. Reacting instinctively, Silver again could not regain his feet, for the spilled rum now resided fatally beneath him, and so he suffered another collision with the floor when he attempted to flee. Just as he landed crookedly against the wood, another flask—one of the ones that had been emptied of the alcohol it was carrying—fell next to his head, grazing his ear, with a great clamor.

The second interval was a hail of flasks that were empty of the pirates' original weapon, and although considerably more succinct in time constraint, this additional assault rendered exceedingly more pain than the first. Silver endeavored to elude the rain of these new missiles as much as he could, but his vision was slightly blurred from the intoxication, and if he succeeded in avoiding one flask, he often only intersected with another.

He then suddenly felt two strong hands lift him to his feet, where they remained until he found his balance, and then he was released. Silver ran his hand over his face, his chest tight with humiliation and fury, and looked up into the smiling teeth of Barak.

Barak raised his voice in a congratulatory manner. "Th' boy's proven himself t' be strong!" he announced, but, to Silver's inwardly dismay, he added, "but is he _brave_?"

"Ask it o' Davy!" The crew shouted, crested around Silver's dripping body.

"Aye, Davy'll know," Barak agreed, looking provokingly into Silver's eyes. Again, Silver was lifted and carried to another area in the stateroom, but this time Silver was pulled away from Barak's presence, giving the captain a glare the boy considered so fiery, that he felt it blazed in that identical spot long after he had gone.

Silver was replaced on his feet across the stateroom from where he had been tortured with the rum and flasks, but no sooner was he on his feet than the pirates were pressing against his forehead and pulling his shoulders, dragging him onto his back so that he lay on the floor staring at the ceiling. Fright and his already flickering anger boiled inside him, and he fought with great cries of protestation and flails to prevent himself of being lain out on the floor. It was in vain, however, for with some strength greater than his, the pirates availed and immobilized him. Silver lifted and strained his neck to see in front of him, and saw five pirates restraining his limbs, and a sixth approaching his left side with a hammer and nail.

A hand reached out and pulled Silver's head down against the wood floor, forcing him to relax his neck or else suffer severe pain. Silver's eyes watched the man with the hammer and nail intensely, and writhed against the confinement of his arms and legs once more. It did nothing, and the man with the hammer knelt down beside the left side of Silver's head, his hands and his equipment disappearing out of Silver's eyesight.

All of Silver's limbs tensed, and he would have been altogether acutely rigid and unmoving, had his chest not have risen and fallen with such savagery. Silver closed his eyes and could feel his earlobe being washed with a liquid that had no odor of which he could detect, and then the cold point of the nail being placed on the skin. His eyes opened on a command he did not issue, and Silver's breath drew in like ice as he saw the hammer rise back into his peripheral vision and then disappear again, and his breath raked out as fire as the nail pierced the lobe with a putrid, sandpaper sound.

He felt the nail slip out of the indenture it had created, and something else slip back into its place, but he only removed his eyes from the ceiling when the convivial cheers and exults from the pirates who surrounded him rose to a decibel of sound that compelled him to look the men in their faces.

The pirates freed his limbs, and he raised from the floor, slowly, as the men cheered plaudits all around him. Some clustered about his left side in the noise and celebration, smiling and slapping his back as they mopped the blood from his ear with their handkerchiefs.

"Good job, lad," one said, very close to him, to Silver's right.

"Yer a real ol' salt, ye is," another observed, with a chuckle.

"He's a point o' va' sea devil, h'ain't he?" one laughed, where Silver could see him.

"Does it hurt, lad?" one asked with mirth, to his left.

"It does, terribly," Silver answered, weakly, but spurred to relief and gladness by the pirates' felicity. "What happened?"

The man laughed, quiet in the midst of the others' combined. "We pierced ye a lil'. It's whot pirates get when ye become inducted. Ye git an earring on yer left lobe."

Silver's eyes widened, and the pirate he was conversing with must have noticed, for he continued with, "she's nay a pretty sight t' see just now, but she'll be a beauty when yer lobe's done bleedin'. That should stop soon, 'ere."

Silver raised his voice over the room's cries of exaltation. "Am I now officially inducted?"

Another, from the right, answered. "No, boy," he cried, "but th' last part's easiest!"

"What will I have to do?"

"Ye've got t' pay homage to Davy Jones!"

After this answer was issued, Barak leapt into the center of the room and demanded silence with incredible oaths and name calling. When the congregation obeyed, Barak straightened himself and, as he adjusted the cuffs of his great coat, he cried, "Who here'll represent Mr. Davy Jones t'night fer this lad, John Silver?"

"Mercurius!" the whole of them replied, and the very man stalked next to Barak, which led to the initiation of a new round of ovations. Barak again had to command order before he was able to continue.

"Silver," he called when they quieted, "stand up!"

Silver rose quickly and hurried to Barak's side.

"Boy, th' next n' last step o' this induction ceremony is t' pay homage t' Davy Jones. Are ye ready, Silver?"

He asserted confidently that he was, although he was not as confident as he seemed.

"Good, lad. Now," Barak stated, "t' pay homage to Davy Jones by new pirates bein' inducted like ye in yer same position, th' traditional way it's done is th' new pirate must get down on his knees and kiss th' belly of the fattest man on th' ship."

"That's me," Mercurius inserted, with such ironic pleasure, that if he had had a tail to wag, it would have been waving behind him at that moment.

Silver's nose wrinkled, and his brow fell over his eyes.

Barak cuffed Silver on the back of the head. "Yer s'posed t' be payin' Davy homage, and ye don't do that by crinklin' yer face up that way!" Silver relaxed his muscles, and Barak continued. "His belly is smeared with lard, boy, but ye on'y have t' kiss it once t' give plenty o' homage. Ye c'n do it, can't ye, boy?"

Silver did not answer, but ran his tongue along his teeth underneath his lips. He eyed the excess flesh that rested around Mercurius's waist and belt, which gleamed with lard, and his own stomach jumped. His eyes strayed to his left, and he saw all the pirates gathered around the area, absorbed with wide-eyed suspense and little sound or movement. Silver, looking over at Barak with a quick glance, concluded decisively that he would kiss Mercurius's stomach very quickly and very lightly, and the act would be done in a matter of seconds.

The Ursid knelt down and crawled to the man on his hands and knees, with the silence rattling in his ears, reached the flesh, swallowed, pursed his lips, brushed it with them, and then fled across the room. The whole congregation roared with laughter—Barak's great, imperious laughter also ringing aloud—and Silver was again extolled by all present.

"Yer a pirate, now, Silver!" He heard Barak resound, the last comprehensible words he heard that night, for the rest of it was drowned by the incessant consumption of rum, cheering, laughing, and singing until it swirled into a colorful wheel that spun merrily into unconsciousness.

When Silver awoke again, it was early morning, and seemed very much like it, too, for the ship had sailed into the crisp light of a new star, and the stateroom was bathed in its soft, white glow.

Silver rose from where he laid strewn out on the floor, his head pounding with every pulse, and he staggered silently out of the stateroom where many of the pirates still lay sleeping in their ignominy. Outside, Silver observed himself tenebrously in a nearby window looking into the forecastle, and fingered the earring that now clung to his left ear. Although blood had dried around it, Silver considered this to be the loveliest thing he had ever adorned himself with, including his little blue coat with the velvet facings.

Although, as he looked at himself, he chest still grew sore with unwonted grief and it could not be assuaged by any admiration of his jewelry, so he left the window and his reflection, and ran across the deck.

He climbed for a little while on the shrouds, restlessly, but he longed for something he could not name, and knew it was not placated where he was, so he jumped back down on the deck and pursued a winding course to the aftcastle. He placed a hand on the wall of this compartment, and drifted close to it, following it with his hand. His shadow billowed and compressed underneath his moving feet in the white star light, and his hand on the wall cast a long shadow that broke on the vertex of the wall and floor. He realized that he could hear his feet tap against the wood in silent morning, and then he could not forget it.

He left the aftcastle and wandered unhappily underneath the bridge, where his shadow was swallowed by the one cast by the upper deck, and then he shuffled to the starboard bulwarks. There, he began to cry. He had not been able to cry before; he had not cried even during the most dismal events of his life, and now, with a rush of emotion, he cried for everything at once. He wept with rage, beating the bulwarks, pulling at his hair, and pounding his shoulders. He chewed the insides of his cheek to keep himself from shouting with fury, and clawed at his arms, until he finally sank onto the ship's side and sobbed heavily.

He acted so for a long time, until it was completely exhausted from his body. His respiration slowed after a time, and peace gradually settled inside him again. He choked occasionally with relapses, but at length Silver calmed, and merely stared out over the silent Etherium, watching the blue nebula roll and toss, and wake with the star's light.

After such a cleansing of his constrained despairs, Silver was now left feeling lighter as he gazed beyond the nebulous clouds of what was now his home. His burdens had been alleviated, and, as he reached up absently and held his new earring in his hand, he at last felt contented, motivated, and confident—prepared to follow in the century-old footsteps of Captain Nathaniel Flint. He would have the loot of a thousand worlds, and be as rich as a king.

**The End**


End file.
